Book 

Copyright^ 

CQFXRIGliI DEPOSIT 



THE SECRET OF 
POPULARITY 



The Secret 
of Popularity 

©oto to acjnetie 
Social Success 

By Emily Holt 




New York 
McClure, Phillips fcf Co. 

MCMIV 



3> Zissz 



Tm (form ww^vufi 
OCi 30 .1904 



Copyright, 1904, p)> 
McCLURE. PHILLIPS & CO. 
Published October, 1904, 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introduction 3 

Charm in Conversation 17 

A Graceful Correspondent 49 

How To Be a Friend . 75 

The Woman Admired by Men 102 

The Child We Love 123 

A Popular Neighbour 146 

Welcome Guests 168 

"e Successful Hostess 192 

e Happy Traveller 214 

Favourite in the Home Circle 240 

x\ Bachelor and a Gentleman ...... 266 

A Gracious Mistress 284 



THE SECRET OF 
POPULARITY 



INTRODUCTION 



WHAT IS THE SECRET OF TRUE POPULARITY ? 

A good manner is the best thing in the world. 

Bulwer 

rHIS book has been written for the 
especial benefit of those men and 
women who wish to be liked and 
admired and are not; for those who, while in- 
telligent, aspiring and successful in many of 
their undertakings, are not social favorites, 
and who for that reason are puzzled, dissatis- 
fied and unhappy. 

They are not unpopular in the disagreeable 
sense of that word, they are not guilty of wil- 
ful rudeness, nor do they make enemies, but 
on the other hand they do not make friends 
readily. They are among the many who 

[3] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

have dozens of noble virtues, few faults of 
character, and sometimes great gifts and tal- 
ents, but socially they do not, as we say, "get 
on." Their presence gives nobody any es- 
pecial satisfaction, their absence creates 
scarcely any regret, what they have to say ex- 
cites slight interest, and while they have too 
much grit and pride to let anyone see what 
they feel, they are none the less acutely con- 
scious of their failure to charm, and they find 
small pleasure in the average social occasion. 
The majority of unpopular persons are sen- 
sitive. Privately, but none the less deeply, do 
they deplore their own shortcomings. They 
become lonely and retiring and secretly em- 
bittered and discouraged, for they feel ill at 
ease, awkward and self-conscious in the pres- 
ence of strangers. All their lives they are 
hampered and distressed by the knowledge 
that when on matters of business or pleasure 
bent their want of a pleasing way places them 
at a very great disadvantage. 

But that most serious shortcoming and dis- 

[4] 



SECRET OF TRUE POPULARITY 

advantage under which the unpopular people 
labor, is their own mistaken conviction that 
their lack of charm is a misfortune not only 
beyond remedy, but never to be understood 
nor fairly explained. 

They accept the common notion that popu- 
larity is a mysterious and inexplicable gift 
from nature: that people are born to be popu- 
lar or unpopular as Fate will have it, and to 
correct so false and injurious a belief this book 
has been written. In its pages I have striven, 
and I hope successfully, to make it plain that 
it is not only possible, but actually easy, to 
win popularity by working for it in the 
right way; by following good rules and by 
overcoming not so much ignorance as mis- 
conception and the use and the beauty and 
adaptability of many fine, nice points of good- 
breeding. 

To the unpopular people I have endeavored 
to show that it is the constant, daily saying 
and doing of simple, graceful things that ren- 
ders men and women attractive. 

[5] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 



I have not hesitated to express the opinion 
that 

MANNER IS CHARM 

" TjyTANNER is everything with some 
people and something with every- 
body," and the best manner, the winning 
manner, is that adopted by the man or the 
woman who is willing to show, patiently 
but persistently, countless seemingly insig- 
nificant but really very important little 
courtesies. 

What the charming, magnetic and favorite 
member of society possesses is a good manner. 

He is not dependent upon wealth, wit or 
beauty; he has control over no strange, unex- 
plainable power by which men and women 
are drawn to him as the needle is drawn to the 
pole. Instead, he is first bent on pleasing 
others, and thus he surely renders himself 
agreeable, welcome and even fascinating. 

He is willing to take pains and thought in 
showing constant courtesies, to consider his 
efforts fully repaid by gaining the liking of 
[6] 



SECRET OF TRUE POPULARITY 

others, and he is not greedy for immediate and 
big rewards. 

Now, I do not mean here to accuse or cor- 
rect the unpopular person of selfishness. His 
greatest fault is his carelessness, lack of ob- 
servation and his 

WANT OF SYMPATHETIC UNDERSTANDING 

JLJT E does not think first how to put his com- 
panion at his ease before seeking his own 
pleasure and comfort, and he does not culti- 
vate quick perceptions. He is guilty of rude- 
ness and neglectfulness, not because he means 
to be unkind, but because he is thoughtless 
and because he fails to see his chance for say- 
ing a kind word and for fulfilling a graceful, 
gracious little duty. He hurts a companion 
before he knows it, or involuntarily offends 
some one by reason of his hasty way or his ig- 
norance of the proper course of conduct to fol- 
low. 

Therefore I have advised him to study 
others a little, never to wait to be encouraged 

[7] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

or courted in order to show how kind and 
courteous he can be, to think of his com- 
panions' preferences and prejudices before 
expressing his opinions, to make people's 
looks his only books for a while, and to 
watch some popular friend and note how 
cautious, temperate and considerate he is. 

Let him remember to be slow to express his 
radical opinions and hasty judgments, to be 
sparing in criticism and ridicule and to know 
that it is as necessary as it is 

POLITE TO BE GOOD NATURED 

^DOPULARITY is seldom or never won by 
those who are quick to take offence and 
ready to show resentment. " It is true of many 
persons that their memory is nothing but a 
row of hooks on which to hang up grudges," 
truly says an old proverb, and the most agree- 
able man is always willing to keep his mind 
wholesomely clear of grudges. He is willing 
to forgive or ignore the errors of others and 
he cultivates a cheerful habit. 

[8] 



SECRET OF TRUE POPULARITY 

It is not necessary to adopt an unnaturally 
hilarious manner or to pretend to a false fes- 
tivity of spirit, but I do highly recommend the 
manner that is amiable and responsive to and 
very tolerant of gaiety. 

There is so much error and egotism be- 
trayed by a display of moods, grievances, de- 
pression of spirit and the custom of carrying 
private worries and sorrows into social life. 
The uncheerful person is an unpopular per- 
son, and neither beauty nor wit has, I think, 
in general society, so high a value as an air of 
good-natured endurance of dull, long-winded 
or silent people. 

The unpopular woman — and man, too, for 
that matter — is nearly always a trifle selfish 
on this point. She is so often impatient of an 
uninteresting companion, so unwilling to cast 
the bread of courtesy on the waters, and to 
wait for it to come back to her in the form of 
the admiration and high praise of the silent 
and unobtrusive folk. 

The popular woman thoughtlessly thinks 

[9] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

them tiresome and not worth while, while the 
popular one knows that it is well and it is im- 
portant to impress everyone agreeably and to 
make friends on every hand. 

Now, by the same token there are many un- 
popular persons, I believe, who would prove 
delightful indeed as guests, companions and 
friends if only their eyes could be opened to 
these simple facts, to the truth that one-half 
of their mistakes and discouragements arise 
through their own neglect of countless and 
all-valuable 

LITTLE OPPORTUNITIES 

J^/^AKE the most of them and be looking 
for them and how to improve them at all 
times. That is the leading and most precious 
piece of advice that I have to give the student 
of the elements of popularity. "Do what you 
can," writes Sidney Smith. "It is the great- 
est of all mistakes to do nothing because you 
can only do a little: but there are men who are 
always clamouring after immediate and stu- 

[io] 



SECRET OF TRUE POPULARITY 

pendous effects." This is sound common- 
sense, as applicable to the needs of the person 
who is trying to acquire an attractive manner 
as to one who is struggling to gain gold or 
fame. 

Begin to take advantage of your smallest 
chances for showing civilities by creating, 
when meeting a stranger, a first good impres- 
sion. This is one of the little opportunities 
which, through thoughtlessness, is so often 
overlooked. Its neglect costs you dearer than 
you know. Endeavour, then, always to im- 
press a new acquaintance with the idea that 
you are agreeable by your glance of wordless 
cordiality, by the pressure of your hand, by the 
tone in which you say "How do you do ?" 

Never treat the old and beautiful ceremony 
of greeting or introduction in a cold, careless 
and perfunctory way. Offer your hand with 
a prompt, spontaneous gesture, infuse an ex- 
pression eloquent of a sort of glad surprise 
into your eyes. Smile a little. Do not ac- 
cept anyone's arrival or anyone's acquaint- 

[»] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

ance as a matter of fact, and don't forget that 
it takes very, very little to please people, to 
flatter, content, and ingratiate them. The 
world is not one-half so exacting or critical as 
you think, and places the highest value upon 
the smallest of kind attentions, and long and 
tenderly remembers little, pleasant common- 
place speeches. 

There was never, I think, an individual 
whose conduct so illustrated the truth of big 
advantages to be gained through the best use 
of little opportunities as that of Mrs. Grover 
Cleveland. No first lady of the land ever 
won just the same measure of popularity with 
all classes of men and women as fell to the 
share of this gentlewoman who made com- 
mon-place occasions and well-worn phrases 
serve to the best and most delightful pur- 
poses. 

It was at a general reception given to Presi- 
dent Cleveland and herself in the South that 
down the line of citizens came an elderly lady. 
"Why, how do you do?" asked the Presi- 
[12] 



SECRET OF TRUE POPULARITY 

dent's wife, bending forward and smiling, as 
she held the old lady's hand one instant 
warmly in her own. For a moment the ven- 
erable guest at the reception paused and 
beamed with delight. " I am very much bet- 
ter this winter, thank you," she answered, 
and then hurried happily on to meet her 
friends and tell them that Mrs. Cleveland 
had not only remembered her, but remem- 
bered also to ask about her rheumatism. 
"At least," she explained, "I saw by the look 
in her eyes that she recollected that I had 
been at the reception last winter, and she 
asked me how I did in a tone that showed me 
she had noticed how crippled I was then in 
my shoulder." Now, as a matter of fact, the 
President's wife had just a very slight recol- 
lection of either the old lady or her ailments, 
but in her momentary doubt and by the vol- 
untary kindness of her manner in merely 
shaking hands, she left an impression behind 
her that was both beautiful and valuable and 
worth a bookful of gushing compliments. 

[13] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

For always the best, most lasting and most 
delightful effect upon others is exercised by 
means of 

THE WORDLESS COMPLIMENT 

yJND a loss of social success I can never 
attribute to a want of facility for openly 
expressed phrases of flattery. There is al- 
ways another, a better, and by many a neg- 
lected, way of implying a compliment more 
by what is done than by what is said. A gift 
for saying pretty things, for offering flattery 
that sounds both delicate, sincere and agree- 
able to the ear, is given to few, but the man 
who remembers to show chivalrous courtesies 
to a woman compliments her far more than 
when he boldly states that he thinks her beau- 
tiful and then forgets to open the door for her 
and to carry her parcels. 

That member of society pays a word- 
less, but none the less valuable, compliment 
who listens with rapt attention to what her 
companion has to say and who is pains- 

[14] 



SECRET OF TRUE POPULARITY 

taking in her care to remember names and 
faces. 

The spoken words of admiration of an- 
other's beauty, wit, grace, talents, or posses- 
sions, may and often do fail in their effect. 
They frequently sound pretentious, insincere, 
awkward, or, what is yet more unpleasant, 
familiar and sycophantic; but the wordless 
compliment, the promptly answered note, the 
early welcome offered a home-coming neigh- 
bor, the timely call, etc., is ever received with 
recognition and appreciation. 

Popularity, therefore, I would have my 
every reader understand, is 

AN EXACT SCIENCE AND AN ART 

( T*'HERE are ways and means open to 
everyone, everywhere and at all times for 
acquiring popularity by studying and by prac- 
tising the simple rules that make for a gra- 
cious manner. A little patience and persist- 
ence is required, but "few things are impos- 
sible to diligence and skill, ,, and Lord Chester- 

[ 15 ] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

field says that while " most arts require long 
study and application, the most useful of all, 
that of pleasing, requires only the desire. " 
That this desire exists I know, and that the 
desire, supplemented by a little suggestion, 
guidance and instruction will lead many to 
gain the popularity that they crave I believe. 
Therefore I have undertaken and accom- 
plished this little book, in the hope that it will 
be of aid to many who agree with me in that 
the secret of true popularity is a good man- 
ner and that "manners are the shadows of 
virtues." 

Emily Holt. 



[16J 



CHAPTER ONE 



CHARM IN CONVERSATION 

An easy manner in conversation is the most desirable 
quality a man can have. Sir Richard Steele 

rAKE time, pains, thought and in- 
struction in order to learn how to talk 
pleasantly and well. There is no 
more valuable and charming accomplish- 
ment than this; for, to become an all-around 
success in business and society, you must 
needs know how to appeal to the sympathies 
and intelligences of men and women by word 
of mouth. 

Contrary to a generally accepted and al- 
most superstitious belief, the acquirement of 
"an easy manner in conversation" is not a 

[17] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

difficult or discouraging undertaking. Given 
an average intelligence, a right good will and 
a willingness to devote diligent study to a few 
simple, long-tried and valuable rules, it is 
quite possible to learn to hold one's own at all 
times in conversation with both confidence 
and grace. 

Such rules as I shall here set down are 
hard neither to understand or apply. They 
are followed by every naturally agreeable 
talker, and in their first application they have 
to do with the cultivation of 

THE PLEASANT SPEAKING VOICE 

TF you stop to realize that the most glorious 
music ever written loses its beauty when 
played upon a harsh and tuneless instrument, 
then you can appreciate how your best 
phrases, when spoken in a nasal, undisci- 
plined voice actually hurt the ears of your 
hearer. No less famous person than Demos- 
thenes appreciated that his ideas could never 
hold the attention of any audience if he 
[18] 



CHARM IN CONVERSATION 

expressed them in sharp and strident tones. 
Consequently that greatest of all orators gave 
the most earnest and patient attention to the 
mastery of his naturally unmusical voice be- 
fore he attempted to speak to the Athenian 
people, and, in a small way, it is quite easy for 
anyone to do just what Demosthenes did. 
The way to give smoothness and sweetness to 
a high, harsh voice is to use the simple device 
of persistently speaking one whole octave 
lower than that which is ordinarily and 
carelessly employed. 

This brings the voice under control, and this 
is what gives to the voice of nearly every 
Southern woman that nice distinction that 
enables us to tell in an instant from what part 
of this big continent she comes, no matter 
when or where we may meet her. 

The well-bred Southern woman speaks in a 
low tone and she speaks slowly, and there you 
have the secret of her charm of voice, the ex- 
planation of the pleasure we find when we 
listen to her words. To the high, harsh talker 

[ 19 ] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

I can give consolation by saying that it takes 
only a little time and a little effort to learn 
how to imitate this good example. Watch the 
face of your comrade and see if, as you talk, 
her forehead draws up a little, or his mouth 
contracts a trifle, and quickly and safely con- 
clude that you are talking too high and too 
fast, that you are rasping delicate nerves. 
Correct yourself and convince yourself of this 
error by pausing occasionally to listen to your- 
self. 

Break off quite abruptly now and then, in 
the midst of a sentence, and you will probably 
be shocked to find how loudly the echoes of 
your own words ring in your own ears, how 
strained your larynx feels and what a super- 
fluous physical effort you are making merely 
to announce that the weather is excellent or 
the reverse. When you have thus experi- 
enced once or twice the little shock that this 
discovery gives to your vanity, you will not 
find it hard to drop down from shrill altitudes 
into a deeper and more sympathetic tone. 

[20] 



CHARM IN CONVERSATION 

Thereupon you insensibly fall into the way of 
moderating the pace at which you speak. 

For, talk on deliberately, and not only do 
you at once find it easier to arrange your ideas 
in logical and graceful order, but you give your 
sentences a rounder, better turn, and convey 
your meaning far more pleasantly and direct- 
ly. Having full command of your voice, you 
will then rarely or never fall into the besetting 
sin of the loud and rapid talker — a sin to 
which, I regret to say, women are especially 
prone — of trying to persuade or silence an 
opponent in argument by sheer force of lung 
power. You can of course overwhelm by 
merely straining your vocal chords, but in 
gaining such a victory you do not add to your 
popularity and you are guilty of an exceed- 
ingly vulgar blunder. 

Better always let your companion remain 
unconvinced of the correctness of your judg- 
ment than elevate your voice in a sturdy effort 
at driving home the telling truth of your state- 
ments. Make it also a rule to take part in 
[21] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

no discussion that will lead you beyond your 
middle register tones, and resist the tempta- 
tion to rise vocally on your tip toes in order 
to bear a share in the narration of some ex- 
citing incident, or to break into a conversa- 
tion. All this restraint would seem to re- 
quire a good deal of self-sacrifice, but it is as 
necessary as possible in order to show that you 
understand the charm that lies in complete 

REPOSE OF MANNER 

^_^AVE a care how you gesticulate. Talk 
with interest and animation, but let your 
eyes and your lips and your language express 
that much. There is little or no necessity for 
ever employing hands, head, shoulders and 
eyebrows with a view to adding emphasis and 
expression to your last remark. Nothing is 
more exhausting than the strain of listening to 
the hyper-vivacious individual who literally 
cannot talk and sit still. 

The common mistake of young people and 
shy folk is to try, by means of facial expres- 
[22] 



CHARM IN CONVERSATION 

sion and a sort of bustle of gaiety, to hide their 
diffidence and their difficulty in finding the 
free use of their tongues. All this, however, 
is energy and erfbrt put forth in the wrong 
direction, for a restless or boisterous nervous- 
ness is evidence enough of a want of self-con- 
fidence and it rarely pleases or deceives any- 
one. 

If you have a desire to succeed in pleasing 
people remember that "repose is as necessary 
in conversation as in a picture," and that you 
cannot do better than relax a little when you 
talk. Do not let your shyness or your care- 
lessness in habit place you at so sad a disad- 
vantage that you swing vigourously back and 
forth in a rocking-chair as you talk or listen. 
While conversing do not shake your foot, alter 
your position ten times in as many minutes, 
twiddle with your watch chain, a lock of hair, 
or a button on your coat. Do not play a 
devil's tattoo with your fingers on the arm of 
your chair, pick up and play with every small 
object within your reach, run your hands re- 

[23] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

peatedly through your hair, and nodding your 
head with almost mechanical rapidity repeat 
half automatically, "Yes," "yes," "really," 
"really," etc. 

These are all merely foolish mannerisms 
that not infrequently grate most cruelly. 
Sometimes, indeed, these small but easily con- 
quered faults amount to a positive annoyance 
in the eyes of critical and well-bred persons, 
and then they go as far toward destroying 
your ability to claim serious attention as does 
that most familiar and unforgivable nuisance 
in conversation, 

THE HABITUAL GIGGLE 

^^IVE way easily and heartily to a cheer- 
ful and appropriate expression of mirth, 
smile readily and frequently, but, as you hope 
to prove yourself a graceful conversationalist, 
do not become the victim of the little, expres- 
sionless, involuntary laugh. Though you are 
as learned as Lord Bacon and as witty as 
Mark Twain, you can still destroy all the 

[24] 



CHARM IN CONVERSATION 

social value of your mental attainments by 
chuckling, tittering, or convulsively guffaw- 
ing at short, regular intervals and without 
sufficient provoking cause. 

The fixed reiteration of a little laugh is not 
only a mirthless but a positively irritating 
sound, and it is nothing more than a nervous 
indulgence, which, by the expenditure of a 
trifling amount of will-power, can be and 
should be controlled; for greatly does its con- 
stant -ecurrence interfere in speech with 

GRACE OF DICTION 

OTRIVE to speak your mother tongue 
without stilted use of large words, but 
with grammatical correctness, and never use 
any word without exact knowledge of its 
definition and pronunciation. If your youthful 
lines were not cast in those pleasant places 
where you were taught to draw upon the 
purest wells of English, try then, in your 
maturer and more ambitious years, to learn 
how to express yourself with good, clear, 

[25] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

simple phraseology, and do not adopt the slang 
that is in vogue to help out your vocabulary. 

There is both provincial carelessness and 
a lack of refined association implied by the 
frequent use of this lingo of the streets. 

Occasionally a bit of slang is amusing and 
sometimes it is very expressive; on the lips of 
young men and lively girls its rare use is not 
offensive, but the continued repetition of 
slang terms is not to be pardoned in men or 
women of any age (unless they are of the very 
humblest origin and least educated class). 
A slangy habit, however, is not the only false 
method to be discouraged in the seeker after 
the easy graces of speech. 

Beware of falling into the way of constantly 
employing such phrases as "Listen here" and 
"say"; of giving assent and showing surprise 
by crying "That's right," "Well, you don't 
say," and concluding the simplest statement 
with the unimpressive and unnecessary addi- 
tions of "See!" "Don't you know?" "You 
know," etc, 

[26] 



CHARM IN CONVERSATION 

"Resist with might and main/' said I not 
long since to a sadly handicapped but am- 
bitious young girl who wished to know how to 
speak correctly, "all temptation to begin 
every sentence with an ' I guess/ or Til bet 
you/ " and though you have had an excel- 
lent education/' I added, "I am astonished to 
hear you make the foolish mistake of describ- 
ing a dessert as 'simply elegant/ the Easter 
hat of the woman who sits in the pew in front 
of you as ' ghastly ugly/ and the nice, new 
parlor carpet as 'something grand. 

Now, that will not do at all if you hope to 
be regarded by the casual stranger as a culti- 
vated person, and that was one reason why you 
overheard your fellow-traveller on the steam- 
ship speak of you as a " rather common young 
woman." It was a cruel and hasty judgment, 
of course, but your fellow-traveller was a very 
highly educated gentleman and he set you 
down as rather vulgar because you have the 
ugly trick of recklessly misapplying your ad- 
jectives and because you said but yesterday to 

[27] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

your friend, who told you an almost incredible 
story, that she had "better go chase herself." 

There was a vivid blush on the cheek of the 
pretty penitent when I held up her sins before 
her, but I think she saw the force of my state- 
ment, and I hastened to add to my advice the 
suggestion that she should not give up slang 
and big, foolish adjectives for an almost equal- 
ly silly fashion of talking affectedly. 

"Do not," I warned, "try to make a flour- 
ish of your knowledge by dropping now and 
then into French or German, if you under- 
stand those languages." Never say in a for- 
eign tongue anything that you can just as 
clearly express in English, for simplicity is a 
very great charm in conversation. Indeed, 
I think it hardly less attractive than a con- 
stant display of 

POLITE CONSIDERATION 

"TT is a secret known to few, yet of no small 
use in the conduct of life, that when you fall 
into a man's conversation the first thing you 

E28] 



CHARM IN CONVERSATION 

should consider is whether he has the greater 
inclination to hear you or that you should 
hear him." Now, this is a text from which to 
preach some practical truths, for so many 
there are who believe that all their hope of 
conversational success lies in talking them- 
selves. As a matter of fact, one-half of the 
charm and art you display lies in making 
others talk. 

You must learn how to do this and do it 
well if you would gain social place and golden 
opinions, and here I must not forget to set it 
down that there is an amazing amount of tact 
and skill to be evinced by the prompt polite- 
ness with which you allow men and women to 
talk to you of themselves, their hobbies, etc. 
If you have ever had anyone demonstrate so 
much exquisite courtesy in your behalf you 
can then fully realize how flattered and stim- 
ulated you felt by it. Nothing else so loosens 
our tongue, revives our spirits and enlarges our 
powersof eloquent expression as the conscious- 
ness that our companion is gently encouraging 

[29] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

us to talk freely and fully about those occupa- 
tions with which we are most familiar and 
those interests that lie nearest our heart. 

Yet I have met so many otherwise keen- 
sighted and kind-hearted men and women 
who fell dismally short of making any social 
progress, merely for the reason that they failed 
to appreciate the necessity of not only per- 
mitting others to talk of themselves, but of wil- 
lingly inviting them to do so. 

You may not, for example, care for foot- 
ball, diet-kitchens, bridge-whist, or botany; 
but if you are aware that anyone of these sub- 
jects engages the hearty interest of the indi- 
vidual into whose company you are thrown, 
then try to coax him to talk to you upon that 
topic with which he is most familiar and on 
which he can most readily and gladly speak. 

Thus you will have not only solved one of 
the problems of making conversation easy, 
but of making yourself a favorite as well. It 
is possible to be as unselfish in conversation as 
in giving gifts, and it is also easy by offering 

[30] 



CHARM IN CONVERSATION 

your whole attention to those with whom you 
talk, to pay 

A SPECIAL COMPLIMENT 

/ V"*OU and I and the whole world feel hurt 
and greatly distracted, as well as dis- 
mayed and insulted, by that individual who 
gives us only a divided interest. We do not like 
to talk for the benefit of the woman whose 
glance roves here and there while she pretends 
to hold her mind to what we are saying, and 
those of us who are shy or sensitive feel timid 
and resentful when our companion answers 
us at random, smiles vaguely at our sallies, 
and loses all hold upon the thread of our 
remarks by uncivilly breaking, as we speak, 
into the talk of a nearby group of friends. 

There is so much selfishness and downright 
discourtesy in such behaviour that seriously 
do I advise anyone who has a social place 
to win to follow a course diametrically op- 
posite from this. 

Assume, as your companion speaks, that 

[31] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

you are all but deaf to the rest of the world. 
Let your laugh chime in on the proper cue, 
permit your eyes to grow wide with astonish- 
ment or soft with sympathy as the surprises 
or the pathos develop in a tale unfolded, and 
hear out to its conclusion any story that was 
begun for your benefit. 

Whether an incident intended for your ear 
has to do with a life's tragedy or is a mere mat- 
ter of Bobby's mumps, be sure, oh, very sure, 
that you attend earnestly to its every detail, 
and be sure, oh, very sure, that you 

DO NOT INTERRUPT 

/^IVE leave, if humanly possible, to every 
one who addresses you, to say out his say 
completely. This is something more than a 
matter of minor importance; and while you 
attend do not wear an expression of eagerly 
and with ill-concealed impatience waiting for 
an opportunity to escape from your compan- 
ion's company or for a chance to break into 
words yourself. 

[32] 



CHARM IN CONVERSATION 

No excuse can be accepted for such rude- 
ness. Others may be clamouring for your at- 
tention, and the twice-told tale may be unin- 
teresting indeed, but the obligation still rests 
upon you to give Mr. Blank your first and 
most exclusive, your amiable and most undis- 
turbed hearing. 

I have seen a hostess calmly disregard the 
demands of several newly arrived callers be- 
cause her attention had been claimed by a 
gentle old dowager, who halted inconsider- 
ately just in the drawing-room doorway in 
order to give, at great length, the exactest ac- 
count of the state of her health. 

Quite to the end of this recital did the 
younger woman intently heed every word that 
fell from the lips of her prolix visitor. When 
an impatient guest attempted to intrude upon 
the narration of rheumatic details, the hostess 
calmly put her hand upon the bold one's 
sleeve and held her in check until the old 
lady's woes were all confessed and the routine 
of receiving could be resumed. So tactful 

[33] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

and gracious was she through it all that, 
though this was but a trifling act in itself, it 
did honour to the woman who so perfectly ful- 
filled her duty, and it gave me the clue to the 
means whereby she has been able to find a 
widespread popularity without the assistance 
of wealth or the endowment of beauty. 

Her talisman to success is easy to explain, 
for she is one of those discreet and good- 
natured souls who always remember 

THE SMALL COURTESIES OF CONVERSATION 

T^REQUENTLY and willingly does she 
let fall those small and encouraging re- 
marks that seem commonplace in themselves, 
but which, when properly utilized, serve won- 
derfully to her credit. 

When circumstances over which she has 
no control force her to break off a dialogue, 
she never fails to say, "Pray, excuse me one 
instant," and at the first opportunity she 
comes back to resume her place in the con- 
versation by carefully, and in most compli- 

[34] 



CHARM IN CONVERSATION 

mentary fashion, recalling her companion's 
final sentences. To the individual a trifle 
lacking in self-confidence she knows so well 
how to give courage by accepting his contri- 
bution to conversation with interest, by mur- 
muring now and then her approval of a good 
point made, and by taking farewell of one who 
has tried to talk his best to her with delicately 
expressed thanks for the effort. 

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Blank. I have 
been so interested in all that you have told me 
of Manila," I heard her say with gentle en- 
thusiasm to the shy wife of an army officer, 
who had been induced to tell of her house- 
keeping wpes in the distant Philippines. And 
Mrs. Blank grew pink with pleasure; she re- 
alized the pretty compliment veiled by the 
conventional phrase. She never met this 
well-bred and sweet-hearted woman again, 
but she carried the reputation of her charm 
far and wide; for among other pretty and 
easily imitated conversational wiles that my 
model friend employs, is that of promptly 

[35] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

helping a shy, quiet or neglected and unin- 
troduced man or woman to enter naturally 
and easily into a circle of talk. 

If, for example, a caller seated near her in a 
drawing-room looks a little lonely, she turns 
smilingly and graciously to say "We are dis- 
cussing that new novel by Alice Brown; do 
you care for her work?" or "Mr. Blank is 
telling us of those astonishing new cycling 
feats that he saw last night at the circus; can 
you imagine how anyone dare take such leaps 
on a single wheel ?" 

Simple devices are these indeed, but to know 
how to use them is to know one of the keys that 
unlocks many hearts, and if you are inclined 
to show that you are wise in your day and 
generation, then never rest content to listen to 
anyone with dumb stolidity — more especially 

IF YOU ARE A SILENT PERSON 

^^*OU must learn how to make your silence 
serve to your advantage. There are 
many I know who find it not only difficult but 

[36] 



CHARM IN CONVERSATION 

absolutely impossible to talk without hesita- 
tion. Either their ideas come slowly, or their 
organs of speech do not work easily, or after 
long years of living alone or in silent and de- 
pressing company they have lost the habit of 
conversation. 

But whatever your reasons may be for 
keeping quite silent, do not then come to the 
wrong conclusion that because you are a quiet 
person you can claim no place or part in con- 
versation. 

According to Hazlitt, "Silence is one great 
art in conversation." Develop, then, to its 
highest power the admirable faculty of listen- 
ing. Demonstrate a talent for this; prove 
that you really know how to listen, and your 
silence will not only be esteemed golden, but 
men and women will gladly welcome you into 
their society. 

Wide indeed is the difference between the 
cheerful, inspiring, discreet and confidence- 
inviting silence and the gloomy, self-conscious, 
repellant and indifferent reticence. The first 

[37] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

is made up of amiable glances, a complete 
willingness to pay flattering heed, a care to 
openly express pleasure in the conversational 
efforts of others and a kindly way with the 
dull and long-winded members of society. 

To listen quite soulfully, to admit that this 
amuses and that astounds you, to laugh with 
responsive cheerfulness, to guard a confidence 
very carefully, and to rarely break your re- 
serve of speech by unamiable criticisms is the 
never-failing way by which you can render 
your silence admirable, enviable and posi- 
tively eloquent. 

To be candid, I may as well admit that I 
have little or no patience with the complaints 
of the tongue-tied individual who desires and 
even insists upon his claims to society's es- 
teem, and who is too selfish or too indolent to 
make those claims good by using the talents 
he does possess. 

Such is the man and the woman who is not 
only speechless but unresponsive, who listens 
with a passive stolidity that would chill the 

[38] 



CHARM IN CONVERSATION 

garrulity of a magpie. Such is the person 
who is too lazy, too sulky, or too blind to com- 
prehend that a quid pro quo is exacted in social 
as well as commercial life, that one good turn 
not only deserves, but usually meets, with an- 
other, and that to persistently preserve an ex- 
pressionless and ungracious silence is to in- 
vite the punishment always meted out to those 
whose false economy is to ask much and give 
nothing in return. 

There is, however, another phase of con- 
versational paralysis that calls for consider- 
ation and that can be made to yield at once to 
wise and careful treatment. By this I mean 
the silence adopted by those who say that 
they are 

TOO SHY TO TALK READILY 

<7^IFFIDENCE and not lack of energy 
or good-will, or even of facility, is here 
the stumbling block in the path that leads to 
popularity. A trying nervousness, a painful 
want of confidence, inspired by the mere pres- 

[39] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

ence of strangers, overwhelms no small num- 
ber of men and women who are ready enough 
with their tongues when in the company of 
their friends or their families, and these are 
they who, while well aware that they lack 
ease of conversational manner so highly esti- 
mated by Sir Richard Steele, follow one of two 
equally wrong-headed methods when called 
upon to go into society. Either they attempt 
to hide their want of self-confidence by pre- 
tending to be very lively indeed, or they relapse 
into a sullen, helpless speechlessness which 
only the most patient, tactful and generous- 
hearted can persuade them to overcome. 

Now, the mysterious clog that prevents the ' 
wheels of sweet converse from going round is 
nothing more than the shy individual's self- 
consciousness and his vanity. He is so 
dreadfully afraid of being thought dull or 
conventional, he is so conscious of himself, 
his hands and feet, his dress, his every fea- 
ture, in short, that he refuses to think of 
anything else. 

[40] 



CHARM IN CONVERSATION 

Most unfortunately, he also suffers from an 
absurdly exaggerated notion as to the amount 
of humor and originality he is expected to 
show in conversation. His fixed idea is that 
he must not lead off in speech with a stranger 
by any commonplace observation. 

How to begin to talk smartly and well is 
a positively nightmarish difficulty to many a 
diffident girl or matured man; and, in a des- 
perate attempt to be thought easy, brilliant 
and witty, I have seen a pretty miss lose all 
her self-possession and blunder into nonsense 
and failure, when a simple speech, made 
with complete composure, would have saved 
her an agony of embarrassment and the whole 
situation as well. 

Above all things, therefore, it is the duty of 
one subject to seizure by the demon of diffi- 
dence to maintain at any price a degree of 
self-possession. Command your self-control 
by sitting still, speaking slowly and hazard- 
ing at least a comment on the state of the 
weather. Do not be afraid to announce 

[41] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

simple and obvious facts, and do not be busily 
thinking the while that the young man on 
your left or the damsel on your right will at 
once set you down in consequence as a fool. 

Be comforted by the thought that very 
worldly wise, self-contained, and uncon- 
strained men and women constantly and 
readily begin their conversations by the use of 
just such harmless sentences, that they can 
serve as the stepping-stones to more interest- 
ing topics ; and that the person whom you 
approach with a simple comment on the 
temperature may easily be as shy as yourself. 

Bear also in mind that it is vastly better to 
ask a new acquaintance if he found it cold 
outside, or if he cannot join with you in admir- 
ing the pink roses that form the table's decora- 
tion, than it is to sit in frozen silence or take 
the conversational bit between your teeth and 
pretend to show what an easy talker you are 
by rushing frantically from this subject to that, 
punctuating your Comments with nervous 
laughter, and thus not only destroying your 

[42] 



CHARM IN CONVERSATION 

own aplomb, but throwing into confusion 
every idea of your companion. 

"The way to begin a conversation if you 
are very shy yourself, or if you are obliged to 
break the reserve of a shy companion," I once 
heard a very gracious and gifted social leader 
remark, " is to ask a question. It is a sad blun- 
der to ccmmence to talk by stating a fact, for 
that is egotistical and it does not demand a 
response. A question gently put, with eyes 
as well as tones of inquiry, brings forth a re- 
ply. Trust at once you have created a little 
ripple on the surface of silence, and further- 
more, by the mere asking of the question, you 
properly and delicately compliment the person 
you address by seeking for his opinion." 

Here is advice of no slight value and the re- 
sult of mature experience; and additionally 
I would say that when asking a question, or 
making answer to one that is offered as the 
opening door to conversation, be sure to speak 
with deliberation, smile a little with your eyes, 
give even to a brief answer a warm inflection, 

[43] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

look directly and amiably at your companion, 
and never reply in monosyllables. 

When fairly and easily launched into pleas- 
ant speech do not let your vivacity or your 
fluency lead to forgetfulness that 

THE LIFE OF CONVERSATION 

^HS equality. If you think yourself wiser and 
wittier than your companions don't reveal 
this by trying to show how clever you are, by 
displaying your knowledge, by assuming a 
superior tone, and by talking on long and 
steadily with a rather constant use of the pro- 
noun I. Voltaire says, and wisely, too, that 
" the secret of making oneself tiresome is not 
to know when to stop." Even Macaulay used 
to bore his friends by insisting upon leading in 
the talk and announcing his opinions, and not 
a few are the men and women I know only to 
avoid because they talk so long and so stead- 
ily that they never allow a companion to put 
a word in edgewise. 

They are selfish, egotistical and vain, and 

[44] 



CHARM IN CONVERSATION 

their very cleverness and facility and their 
intolerable way of constituting themselves 
authorities upon all matters has earned for 
them an ugly reputation in society. 

Other secrets of making oneself tiresome 
are to attempt to teach and preach as you 
talk, to use long, large and unfamiliar words, 
to be very finikin in pronunciation and to 
challenge the statements of others. Unless 
there is some moral obligation resting upon 
you to the contrary, never look as though 
you doubted any assertion made by your com- 
panion; and in an argument do not rudely 
exclaim "That is not so," or "I can't be- 
lieve that," or "You are all wrong," etc. 

Do not attempt to argue unless you can be 
polite, and to be polite as well as successful in 
an argument you must let your companion 
state his opinions without interruptions, and 
you must not contradict without saying, "I 
think you are mistaken," or " I must disagree 
with you there," - etc. 

Again, in following the rule regarding 

[45] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

civility in conversation, be sure you do not at- 
tempt the dangerous liberty of correcting pro- 
nunciation of a friend or newly made ac- 
quaintance. For my own part, I thoroughly 
approve of the good grace and the fine cour- 
tesy displayed upon one occasion by no less 
prominent a person than the president of one 
of our great colleges, who, in conversation with 
an old lady friend from the country, repeatedly 
mispronounced the name of one of the Euro- 
pean capitals simply because his elderly and 
sensitive guest had first done so. Contrari- 
wise, I thoroughly disapproved of the very 
unkind behaviour of a young and thoughtless 
hostess who burst into a peal of laughter when 
an unfortunate young fellow, calling at her 
house, spoke of George Eliot, the author, 
as a man. 

"Why, George Eliot was a woman, Mr. 
Blank. What a joke on you," laughed the 
lady, as her guest flushed crimson with mor- 
tification over his mistake. He would have 
forgiven her for pointing out his error had she 

[46] 



CHARM IN CONVERSATION 



done so with kindliness, and better still he 
would have been spared great humiliation, 
if with true courtesy the lady had said noth- 
ing at all, but her laughter and her correction 
rankled in his heart, and not for a long, long 
time did he find courage to call again on one 
who had so recklessly hurt his feelings and 
humbled his pride. 

To gain, then, a reputation as a truly de- 
lightful talker, it is not only necessary to learn 
how to speak well, but how to practise 

TACT WHEN TALKING 

GENUINELY tactful talker has not 
an emphatic manner in speaking, nor a 
bold, careless way of announcing that she 
loves this person, hates that play, considers 
the new song "perfect rot," and Miss Blank 
the ugliest woman she ever saw. 

Frankness I admire ardently, but not the 
frankness that is reckless and apt to hurt the 
feelings of others. Many are the frank and 
assertive talkers who win enemies where they 

[47] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

had hoped to make friends, and I think I can 
here give no better illustration of my meaning 
than by referring to the unfortunate mistake 
of a guest at a dinner party who sharply criti- 
cised one of the newest novels. 

Her comments were very amusing but very 
severe. She dwelt only upon the novel's 
faults, she jeered at its sentimental passages, 
she sneered at its plot and concluded by the 
very positive statement that such a book was 
fit only to be read by housemaids. A great 
deal that she said was really very funny, but 
most of it was unjust, and the awful truth re- 
mained that the author of the unfortunate voU 
ume was the married daughter of the hostess. 

Of that fact, of course, the guest was igno- 
rant until all her cruel jibes had been uttered 
beyond recall and beyond hope of forgive- 
ness through apology. The young lady of the 
dinner party has yet to learn that wit is cheap 
and the mere easy use of words of no value 
when tact and taste are not exercised in the 
conduct of one's conversation. 

[48] 



CHAPTER TWO 



A GRACEFUL CORRESPONDENT 

A letter timely writ is a rivet to the chain of affection, 
and a letter untimely delayed is as rust to the solder. 

Sir Walter Raleigh 

X"\NE of the greatest aids in the business 
f J ot winning hearts and holding friends 
is to be found in any well supplied 
writing-desk. If, therefore, you have an eye 
to the best and the main chance socially, write 
tidy, timely, well-expressed and numerous 
notes. A perfect note is a very charming and 
very important human document indeed, and 
I would have all my readers understand that 
the pen is still mightier, not only than the 
sword, but mightier than the telephone, the 

[ 49 ] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

telegraph and the typewriter, and it serves 
more than one useful purpose to every man 
and woman who is eager and hopeful of gain- 
ing true popularity. 

It is a pity, and it is true, that not every man 
and woman is aware of the power that lies be- 
hind the pen, for there are so many of both 
sexes who, to speak plainly, shirk their duties 
as correspondents. Without realizing the in- 
justice they do to themselves they admit that 
they avoid letters and note-writing wherever 
and whenever it is possible to do so. 

"I never write a note when I can use the 
'phone, and if my friends insist upon hearing 
from me I dictate a page or two to my type- 
writer or send a wire and there I am," as- 
serted a young gentleman, with a proud 
smile, as though there was something admir- 
able in such methods, which really are not 
only as bad as they can be, but injurious as 
well to his reputation for consideration and 
good-breeding. 

Not upon the fingers of my two hands can 

[50] 



A GRACEFUL CORRESPONDENT 

I count the men and women who, in his neg- 
lect of note and letter-writing, he has sorely 
and forever offended. 

Again and again, when in doubts, in diffi- 
culties, and with his reputation for good-breed- 
ing and good-nature at stake, he has avoided 
sending a note and lost a dear and boon com- 
panion or the good-will of a very important 
acquaintance, for he belongs to that large and 
ever-growing class who either regard note and 
letter-writing as a thief of time, or to the other 
and equally large class who, for want of early 
training, do not know how to live up to the 
task of using their pens gracefully. 

To the first of these, to those who say that 
they have not the time to bother with corre- 
spondence, I need only offer the reproach that 
all kinds of civilities are duties, and to the 
other pen shirkers I must insist that it is pos- 
sible for anyone who has had a common 
school education to acquire the art of 
writing notes and writing them very well 
indeed. 

[51] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

The very first step to take in learning how 
to use your pen to the best purpose can be 
most clearly and helpfully pointed out by 
quoting a bit of 

ADVICE FROM LORD CHESTERFIELD 

" T ET your letters be written accurately as 
"^"'you are able — I mean with regard to 
language, grammar and stops," is what he 
told his son, and it is advice that many would- 
be expert note-writers can with advantage 
take to heart. Devote time and care and 
every precaution to what might be called 
just the mechanism of note-writing, for it is a 
fact that we judge an individual a good deal 
by the appearance his letters present, and I 
go a step farther than Lord Chesterfield and 
insist that it is very necessary to pay careful 
attention to handwriting. 

The average missive is neither a thing of 
beauty nor a joy to its recipient, and I do not 
exaggerate when I say that a clear, tidy 
chirography, like a carefully made toilet and a 

[52] ' 



A GRACEFUL CORRESPONDENT 

sweet, modulated voice, possesses a charm of 
its own. To receive a note that is absolutely 
correct in all its make up, that is distinct, well 
punctuated and written in simple, grammatical 
language; that is dated, signed, sealed and 
addressed with exquisite care, is to receive a 
very pleasant impression of its author. 

I am not unique in preferring the perusal 
of such a note to the many recklessly com- 
posed, commaless, misspelled, crookedly 
stamped missives that make up the bulk of 
a morning's mail. Out of the budget that 
the postman brings I always read first, and 
with the greatest joy, what I call "the nice 
notes. " These are the communications that 
have an agreeable appearance, that are easy 
to read, and that lead me to believe that 
whether I know their authors or not I am safe 
in guessing them to be gentlemen and ladies. 

I think I advance no new or strange ideas 
when I say that it is easy, in the mere tech- 
nique of note-making, to show beautiful re- 
finement and graceful unselfishness, and that 

[53] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

the prime charm in a handwriting lies in its 
distinctness. Spare no effort in order to 
teach yourself how to 

WRITE LEGIBLY 

2?E advised to your advantage and do not 
adopt a big, irregular hand. If you try 
thus to display character and individuality 
you really only succeed in betraying careless- 
ness and affectation and an entire disregard 
for the comfort of others. The most delight- 
ful chirography is rather small than large, it is 
produced by a pen that moves quite deliber- 
ately, and though the characters may seem a 
little stiff and commonplace in form, they are 
always most attractive when they succeed in 
conveying the meaning of the sentences 
promptly and clearly. 

If they do not do this much they are a true 
weariness to the flesh ; and sometimes I have 
known big, dashing and picturesque hand- 
writings to prove so illegible that they gave 
rise to mistakes of a very grave nature and to 

[54] 



A GRACEFUL CORRESPONDENT 

little misinterpretations that led later to small 
quarrels. 

Do not, therefore, be ever ashamed to write 
a thoroughly straightforward, unornamental 
hand, and realize first, last and at all times 
that cream-laid stationery, expensive stamp- 
ing and lordly cresting of note paper do not 
and cannot cover up or atone for the grievous 
sin of misspelling a word or two, leaving out 
commas and semicolons and penning an un- 
grammatical phrase. 

Always have a keen eye to the business of 
composing your sentences nicely, so that their 
meaning will be grasped in an instant. Dot 
every "i," cross every "t," and be heedful in 
the matter of dates and address. 

Copy a note five times, if need be, or until it 
seems free of faults; do not be too hurried or 
haughty or indolent to take so much trouble, 
and do not send out a note blemished with 
erasures. 

Persons of great social experience and high 
literary ability I have known to rewrite their 

[55] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

notes patiently and persistently until all had 
been made as perfect as possible. They im- 
itated the good example of Bret Harte, who 
invariably took as much care when writing a 
note to his tailor as when corresponding with 
a ducal acquaintance. 

If you have suffered from a defective edu- 
cation do not scorn to answer your corre- 
spondence with a dictionary in one hand and 
a grammar in the other. You may call this 
painful composition and time-consuming as 
well, but in the end you will have your reward 
for this carefulness which I number among 

THE PRECAUTIONS THAT PAY 

/^NE such precaution is to remember that 
it is not either kind or courteous to 
scribble down a few words on a note sheet and 
write at the foot of the page above your name 
such a concluding phrase as "hastily yours," 
or, as I noticed at the end of a communication 
I received recently, the sentence, "yours in a 
tearing hurry." 

[56] 



A GRACEFUL CORRESPONDENT 

Now, I suppose I was expected to accept that 
as an excuse for the distressing mistakes with 
which the two small pages were fairly cram- 
med. My correspondent is a mature woman 
and a college graduate at that, but in her tear- 
ing hurry she had misapplied a word or two and 
scratched them out ; she had written Tuesday, 
though Wednesday was the correct date, and, 
for the want of an apostrophe, I was obliged 
to spend half an hour guessing at her meaning. 

I forbear to comment upon the shortcom- 
ings of the handwriting, because I wish here 
to dwell earnestly upon the fact that it is both 
silly and discourteous to write "Yours in 
haste," at the foot of a note. Don't write a 
note at all if you have to make an apology for 
it. If you are uncertain as to the proper con- 
clusions and beginnings for notes, the forms 
into which they should be cast for ceremo- 
nious occasions, and the correct choice in sta- 
tionery, take no chances in these matters, but 
consult a reliable authority on the etiquette 
of these points and abide by the rulings given. 

f 57 ] ' 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

There is an etiquette in such details that 
you cannot afford to ignore, and very im- 
portant is that phase of it that deals with the 
correct use of titles. Should you correspond 
with a general, an honorable, or a physician, 
give to each and every one your very respect- 
ful recognition of his dignities and make as- 
surance doubly sure that you do not misuse 
or misapply or forget them. 

It will redound to your credit that you spell 
the proper name of your correspondent cor- 
rectly, give the initials of a given name their 
right place and order, and, furthermore, re- 
member that in composing a note you should 
write it as briefly as is consistent with grace 
and good sense. 

Observe also that one of the first and most 
important rules in correspondence is to 

ANSWER PROMPTLY 

< T t "'HERE is an everyday civility as well as 
a great deal of common-sense to be dis- 
played by never letting a note grow cold upon 

[58] 



A GRACEFUL CORRESPONDENT 

your desk. Respond quickly and you con- 
tribute to the convenience of others, and you 
show, by giving an early answer, that you 
devote instant and flattering attention to your 
friends' requests. 

Politeness has been well defined as benevo- 
lence in small things, and I think no small po- 
liteness is ever so appreciated as that of an- 
swering an invitation as soon as it is received, 
and somewhat less important communica- 
tions at your very earliest convenience. When 
a friend writes to ask you for an address or for 
your company at dinner respond by the return 
mail. Take such appeals to your attention 
as seriously as your business correspondence 
and answer them with as much care, for really 
and truly it is just as important to oblige and 
please an acquaintance as it is to earn ten dol- 
lars, and it is as much your duty to do so. 

Perhaps I can best make the practical as 
well as the moral side of this obligation clear 
by telling the lamentable tale of the nice young 
man who began his business career in New 

[ 59 ] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

York, and who had the luck to meet a matron 
and a hostess of considerable position. 

She liked the young man's frank ways and 
good eyes and she invited him to dine. For 
two days her note lay on his desk, then it was 
temporarily lost in a pigeon-hole and finally 
the lady sent a second note after the first, to 
know if the first one had ever been received 
and whether the young man intended to dine 
with her. 

Then and only then did he answer with a 
polite refusal, but, later, and not very much 
later, he had reason to regret, and very bit- 
terly, his careless disregard of an opportunity 
to show himself as kind and well-bred by 
treating that note with as much prompt atten- 
tion as he had treated his business letters. 

For not only did the lady never again ask 
him to dine at her charming home, but from 
good authority he learned that she maintained 
a deprecatory silence when his name was men- 
tioned in the presence of an eminent lawyer, 
who greatly respected her judgment of char- 

[60] 



A GRACEFUL CORRESPONDENT 

acter and abilities, and who, had she spoken 
in a friendly and enthusiastic tone, would 
have placed a profitable and important bit of 
legal business in the hands of her at one time 
protege. 

Thus to the grief of this young man he not 
only lost an excellent opportunity, but a 
charming and quite invaluable friend by his 
failure to consider the convenience of another 
and write a little courteous line in time. 

It was a bitter lesson, but of everlasting 
value to him, he afterward confessed, and he 
is one of those intelligent persons who has 
lived to learn 

THE MISSION OF THE LITTLE NOTE 

JLJGW many it is able to fulfil I really dare 
not enumerate. I can only advise any 
and everyone to write small notes often and 
for many purposes, for they are invaluable as 
time-savers and as soothers for ruffled feel- 
ings. Adopt the custom of dropping brief 
missives among your friends and you will 
[61] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

economize in effort, you will avoid many awk- 
ward moments, you will pay numberless 
pretty compliments and you will, better still, 
earn the invaluable reputation for courtesy 
and kindliness. 

A well-trained and self-trained note writer 
knows, firstly, that the average man and 
woman likes to receive notes, and, secondly, 
that when a difficult and delicate situation 
arises there are many things that can be writ- 
ten gracefully, naturally and most appropri- 
ately, whereas the saying of those same sen- 
tences by word of mouth would be almost im- 
possible. 

For example, there is the little note of 
apology and explanation. If you are aware 
of having been unintentionally rude, or if you 
think that Mrs. Blank is angry with you and 
you are not able to understand the cause of 
her very evident vexation, do not offer for the 
first a verbal apology or go to Mrs. Blank and 
baldly and blushingly say, "What is the mat- 
ter ?" Instead, call your pen to your aid. 

[62] 



A GRACEFUL CORRESPONDENT 

For more deftly and delicately and satisfac- 
torily can it right a wrong than your clumsy 
tongue. 

Let us suppose that in a not unnatural fit 
of pure absence of mind you forgot to say 
good-bye to Mrs. B. when you left hurriedly 
at the end of her picnic party, or you failed to 
ask after her mother who is critically ill, or, 
through your heavy veil, you did not recog- 
nize Mr. B. or answer his bow when he passed 
you on the street; or, worse still, you indulged 
in some very caustic criticisms of Miss Blank, 
whom you later heard is his step-sister. 

There are, indeed, simply numberless in- 
stances when in the privacy of your own after- 
thoughts or your review of a day's doings, 
you are forced to blush and wince over small 
slights inflicted through your own impulsive- 
ness or ignorance. And the question in- 
stantly arises as to what you should do to 
rectify the mistakes, big and little, which you 
so seriously regret. 

To rush forth and, by borrowing hours 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

from your business or your housekeeping 
cares, go here and there and offer explana- 
tions to everybody is out of the question. 
Moreover, you probably have not the cour- 
age as well as the time to confess your faults 
verbally and sue for pardon; besides, the talk- 
ing over one's social blunders often results in 
making a mountain out of a mole hill. 

In any such predicament, then, the easiest 
and by far the best course to follow is that of 
writing a few nice little notes, because you 
have so much more control of your pen than 
of your tongue; because, pen in hand, you can 
write and rewrite a sentence until it strikes 
just the correct note of feeling, and because it 
is so much easier to admit your guilt in ink 
than in spoken words. 

I can even now recall the incident of a note 
coming happily to the rescue when two women 
friends were near to falling out and falling 
apart. Mrs. A. had dined at the house of 
Mrs. B., and the two had argued to the point 
where considerable asperity was displayed on 

[64] 



A GRACEFUL CORRESPONDENT 

both sides and a few rather unpleasant home 
truths were sharply exchanged. When Mrs. 

A. got home, however, and her indignation 
cooled, she greatly regretted what she had 
done, but she felt that her pride and her nat- 
ural diffidence would never permit her to ex- 
plain her remorseful feelings. 

Accordingly, after an hour of real labor and 
waste of many sheets of paper, she finally pro- 
duced a little note. This she mailed to Mrs. 

B. , who answered by return post, and thus 
the small breach was promptly healed. Aside 
from these notes, that enable you to make 
what the French so gracefully call the amende 
honorable, there are the very, very important 

OBLIGATORY NOTES 

J(^OR indeed there are notes as obligatory 
as bows, civil greetings, etc., and as all 
powerful as a tactful tongue or fine clothes to 
insure or to destroy your fair fame as a pleas- 
ing and popular person. 

I am inclined to emphasize most impres- 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

sively the claims of the obligatory note for the 
reason that you can never take a step forward 
in general society without meeting it, and you 
must be prepared to realize its claims and 
honor them. I regret to say that many nice 
men and charming women often lose their 
friends and good opportunities because they 
do not know that the obligatory note exists 
and that it is to be always respectfully treated. 
Such a one was my friend the young lawyer, 
who neglected to answer his dinner invitation. 
He did not know how sacred a document a 
written invitation is, and that to hesitate long 
in answering a note of that kind is to be lost. 

Make it one of the guiding rules then of 
your life to answer all invitations immedi- 
ately and with pen and paper. If you only get 
a card to a tea party, at which six ladies are to 
gather round the tray, write your would-be 
hostess that you can or cannot come. She 
will be sure to like you just a trifle better for 
the thought of her convenience, which you 
imply in doing this. 

[66] 



A GRACEFUL CORRESPONDENT 

If you are invited to a very elaborate 
ball, a big church wedding, a large recep- 
tion tea, a formal dinner, luncheon, or 
garden party, or musicale, you can take 
advantage of the laws of etiquette and 
answer by formal sentence or by a sending 
of visiting cards. {See pages 76, 149, 186, 
24.1, 28Q and 310 of the "Encyclopedia of 
Etiquette .") 

These occasions are, however, only the 
exceptions that prove the rule in favor 
of the note of reply which wins your hostess 
to your side, as does that obligatory missive 
that you should despatch always after you 
have been entertained a day or two at a 
friend's house. 

Sometimes this is called the mere bread and 
butter note, but it is of very great utility, and 
if you are asked out to the country only to 
spend a day or a fortnight, show your hostess 
how agreeable an impression her hospitality 
has left upon your mind by sending her a line 
to say that you reached home safely and that 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

you have carried away with you such pleas- 
ant memories of your visit. Perhaps if you 
fail to write that small testimonial to the 
charms of her hospitality she will bear you no 
ill-will and ask you again to her home, but do 
not be willing to be liked negatively. Take a 
little trouble to give positive proof that you 
did enjoy stopping under her roof and she 
will not forget your courtesy, nor remain deaf 
to the compliment you show in your after 
appreciation. 

For all the reasons given above I not only 
advocate but urge the importance of the note 
of condolence. It is obligatory, and you 
must not for your own sake shirk it. I know 
that it is difficult to write, but that is no ex- 
cuse for failing to show your sympathy. Re- 
member, please, that it is the spirit, not the 
letter, that counts here. If you have yourself 
ever been bereaved you can recall how easily 
you guessed at, and understood, and felt 
grateful for the feeling that you knew lay be- 
hind the stiffest and most commonplace sen- 
[68] 



A GRACEFUL CORRESPONDENT 

tences in even the badly expressed notes that 
you received. 

Never can I forget the pleasure that one 
such note gave to a widow in her sorrow. 
She was the wife of the Scotch gardener em- 
ployed by a millionaire. When the gardener 
died suddenly, his employer sent word, 
through his head man of affairs, to have the 
widow kindly treated, for this millionaire was 
a man of much heart and little polish. 

But after the honest Scotchman was de- 
cently buried, and the widow, friendless in the 
new country, sat alone, there was brought to 
her a letter of condolence. It was the only 
one she received and it was written by the 
eleven-year-old daughter of her late husband's 
employer. 

The child was far away in Paris and in gay 
company with her family, but she had found 
the time and taken thought to write out in the 
most formal, but carefully worded, sentences 
an expression of her sympathy. She had, I 
am sure, copied the stilted phrases she used 

[69] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

out of some very old-fashioned book, but the 
lonely woman who received the little letter, 
did not fail to appreciate the tender feeling, 
the charming; kindliness to which those formal 
words bore witness, and that had prompted 
the child to this sweet action. 

The father of the little girl ordered a sum 
of money to be handed the widow, and she 
felt grateful for his generous gift, but that 
letter gave her exquisite pleasure. 

"To think that little Miss Mary took the 
trouble to write to me," she said, in a voice 
that shook with emotion, and she said it again 
and again, laying the letter away among her 
dearest treasures, as we always lay by, among 
our dearest memories, those proofs we receive 
of the sweet sympathy expressed in our be- 
half by friends and strangers alike — proofs 
which we always esteem above mere material 
things. 

Thus do I always count the obligatory note 
as the most valuable little agent. Its good 
offices, in our own behalf and that of others, 

[70] 



A GRACEFUL CORRESPONDENT 

we cannot too often employ, and one impor- 
tant type of the obligatory note is that one 
utilized in order to 

IMPLY A COMPLIMENT 

U T~HE complimentary note it is necessary 
to write when you hear that a friend is in 
trouble of any kind, when he has recovered 
from an illness, fallen heir to a fortune, pub- 
lished a book, announced his engagement, 
returned from a long voyage, welcomed an 
addition to his family, made a fine stroke in 
business, or exhibited a picture for the first 
time or won a medal for it. 

These are the notes that make for good 
feeling in your behalf, because the instinct 
that prompts you to write them is the desire 
to give pleasure to others. There go by few 
weeks in our lives when the opportunity does 
not arise for quite appropriately and always 
successfully, sending forth these small mis- 
sives. 

To some persons I know it never occurs 

[71] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

that there is a place for and a point in them, 
but there are some persons who don't realize 
that popularity is often the result of using lit- 
tle grains of opportunity and little drops of 
sweet attentions. Just look about in your 
busy days and you will find not one but a 
dozen chances for winning more approbation 
with a few two-cent stamps than by means of 
a grand entertainment, costing you fifty dol- 
lars. 

I shall exemplify this by the suppositious 
case of Miss A's concert of yesterday which, 
I shall assume, you attended with pleasure. 
You probably enjoyed Miss A's songs in- 
tensely, but after the concert was done, and 
for days thereafter, you perhaps had not the 
chance to tell her so, nor also to tell of the ad- 
miring comments you heard expressed on all 
sides. This, then, opens an opportunity for 
you to write her, the day after the musicale, 
that you thought her songs charming and that 
pleasant things were said of her in the au- 
dience. She will like you just twice as much 

[72] 



A GRACEFUL CORRESPONDENT 

as formerly, because you remembered to do 
this. Your note serves as a delicate and last- 
ing compliment, and in case your friend, Mrs. 
B., is coming back after a long absence in 
search of health, to her home, and you are too 
occupied to go and call upon her at once, stop 
and write her a little note. In it say how 
pleased you are at the thought of her recov- 
ered strength and her return, and send the 
note so that it will be received by her on the 
day of her arrival. 

In case you are a busy man, with little time 
to spare from your business, or a woman over- 
taxed with housekeeping cares, make every 
possible advantageous use of your pen by 
writing a line to Mrs. B. to say how sorry you 
were not to have been able to call on any of 
her days at home, to tell her that you have 
read her new book with interest and pleasure, 
or that you congratulate her on her son's 
graduation from college with high honors. 

Overlook just such occasions for giving 
tokens of your thoughtfulness and you have 

[73] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

left valuable opportunities slip by you un- 
heeded, but make the best and the most of 
these little openings and, in the end, you will 
have every reason to believe that your talents 
as a note writer have not been painstakingly 
cultivated in vain. 



[74] 



CHAPTER THREE 



HOW TO BE A FRIEND 



The only way to have a friend is to be one. 



Emerson 



T is for those who find a real and painful 



them that I have written this chapter. 
There is, unfortunately, a very imposing per 
cent, of our human kind who have not what 
that well-beloved man and author, Frank R. 
Stockton, used to call "a gift for friendships." 

They want friends in every sense, they feel 
the lack of them very sadly, they realize with 
Cicero, the man of many friends, that " friend- 
ship improves happiness and abates misery, 
by the doubling of our joy and the dividing 




difficulty 



in making friends and in holding 



[75] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

of our grief/' but for all that they do not 
either acquire dear confidants easily and 
quickly, nor do they keep them long devoted. 

For this reason, and naturally, they are 
neither happy nor popular people, though both 
contentment and the pleasantest of reputa- 
tions could they have if they would only adopt 
the wise suggestion of Emerson, and if those 
who are awkward and unsuccessful in es- 
tablishing what I can best call the entente 
cord tale with others would make it their care 
and their study to learn 

HOW TO BE FRIENDLY 

j4 GOOD beginning and a right beginning 
means almost everything in the winning 
of a friend, and yet, I am sure, there are really 
countless men and women who have never 
thought to assume, on meeting an attractive 
looking stranger, what is always recognized 
as an approachable manner. 

You have, said I once to a dear niece, who 
was distressed at her very short list of friends, 

[76] 



HOW TO BE A FRIEND 

perhaps never read the sound and solid coun- 
sel of one of the world's greatest philosophers. 
" Force," he has written, " is of no use to make 
or preserve a friend, who is an animal who is 
never caught nor tamed but by kindness. Ex- 
cite him by your civilities and show him that 
you desire nothing more than his satisfaction." 

Socrates said that. So, when next you find 
yourself introduced to a decidedly pleasant 
looking individual, keep these words in mind 
and spare no effort necessary in order to indi- 
cate that you are ready to like her and hopeful 
of being liked in turn. 

You need not gush and pay compliments 
and lower your dignity. There is great dan- 
ger in so doing of leading others to think that 
your conduct is insincere. You need only 
signify, by sweet, commonplace little words 
and deeds, that you feel a hearty interest in 
your companion. You will be immediately 
liked for that, for your open, cordial way of 
shaking hands and looking absorbed and 
pleased in what is said to you. 

[77] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

Follow this course instead of stopping first 
to find out whether equally kind advances are 
being made in your behalf, and whether you 
are being courted. There is so much false 
pride in waiting timidly or haughtily to see if 
Mr. Brown or Miss Jones will make the first 
effort to please you. No matter what your 
station in life may be, always assume the 
right to meet every man and woman exactly 
half way on the road that leads to friendship, 
and remember that though your head may be 
full of learning and your heart of pure gold, 
few will ever seek your friendship if you show 
a languid or a stiff manner on meeting stran- 
gers. 

You know, by your own experiences, how 
repelled instead of attracted you are by the 
woman who looks you coldly or indifferently 
in the eye, who says "how do you do?" as 
though she did not really care in the least 
to know how you were, who does not answer 
the pressure of your hand, and who appears 
to be indifferent whether you speak to her 

[78] 



HOW TO BE A FRIEND 

or not. Her attitude is not exactly rude, it 
is merely hard and discouraging, and there- 
fore I advise you, who may be exceeding 
sorrowful because in a year or more you 
have not won a single new friend, to take 
just the opposite course from that I have here 
described. 

Do not think at all of yourself first, but 
only how you can please the possible friend, 
and when you have won her, by giving the im- 
pression that you are a friendly person, go on 
in the right way by proving to her that you 
also possess a blessed share of 

THE MILK OF HUMAN KINDLINESS 

^^IVE her early in your acquaintance to 
understand that you are not only polite 
but charitable in your estimates of others. 
The very kernel of the secret of popularity 
in friendship lies in controlling an inclination 
to pick others to pieces. 

The loneliest and most discontented of men 
is that one who can quickly, easily and very 

[79] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

amusingly tear a new acquaintance to tatters. 
He sees everybody's small faults and failings 
and little vanities in an instant, and not only 
does he see them, but he takes a great and 
false delight in pointing them out to others, 
laughing at them, or severely condemning 
them. 

Many acquaintances has he, but not one 
friend. He is far too sharp and cruel a critic, 
and we who know him fear him. We have a 
very uncomfortable feeling that he makes 
merry at our expense when our backs are 
turned, and we are never ready to give him 
our confidence. 

On the other hand, we know to love his very 
opposite, who follows a far saner, sweeter, 
surer way of winning men and women. She 
rarely or never criticises her acquaintances. 
If she finds Miss B. dull and Mrs. A. con- 
ceited and Mr. C. pompous and ill-bred, she 
does not dwell upon these defects. Instead, 
if Mrs. A.'s name is mentioned, she comments 
heartily on the beauty of that lady's face and 

[80] 



HOW TO BE A FRIEND 

will tell you that Miss B. has the sweetest dis- 
position and that she knows Mr. C. to be a 
wonderful whist-player. 

Her charity is a charm and a habit that in- 
spires trustfulness, just as a cruel hypercriti- 
cal faculty is a habit that forces us all into 
mistrust, and it is a habit that anyone of us 
can easily control if we will, but see how 
greatly its indulgence injures our chances for 
winning happiness and friends. 

Should you not possess the pleasant faculty 
of speaking kindly of people you can at least 
treat their faults with considerate silence. 
Such a silence always serves to your advan- 
tage, as does that excellent reputation which 
you can establish for yourself, of knowing 
how to respect 

THE OBLIGATIONS OF FRIENDSHIP 

CO fatally often is it a disregard of these 
obligations, or a real ignorance as to their 
existence,that serves to explain the true reason 
for the friendless state of puzzled and dissat- 
[81] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

isfied persons. Friendship carries with it any 
number of the realest kinds of obligations, 
and if you do not understand them you are 
bound to suffer in the loss of much affection. 

The first and greatest of these is to compre- 
hend that it is never your duty or your license 
to tell your friend of any of the sharp or slur- 
ring criticisms you have heard at her expense. 
The more a woman is your friend, or the more 
close your intimacy grows with a thoroughly 
congenial man, the more carefully and ten- 
derly should you guard against wounding her 
pride or his self-respect. 

Frankness is a beautiful quality indeed, but 
always temper your frankness with mercy 
and love, and never say what can be just as 
well left unsaid. It is not difficult for me to 
recall to mind the case of a certain Miss A., 
who called herself the very good friend of 
Miss B., and who in many ways and for 
several months proved her devotion in charm- 
ing fashion. 

But eventually they fell apart, for poor Miss 

[82] 



HOW TO BE A FRIEND 

A. could never refrain from frankly telling of 
the little sharp or amusing comments she 
heard at Miss B.'s expense, and Miss B. was 
nothing less than human and sensitive to 
resent such freedom of speech. The safest 
and kindest course then to follow is never at 
any time to tell your dearest intimate, though 
she may be as close to you as a sister, that you 
have heard disparaging remarks about her 
choice in spring hats, or that Mr. Jones won- 
ders why she wears red when it is for her so 
unbecoming a color, or that Mrs. Brown 
thinks that she is adopting quite the wrong 
course in training and educating her chil- 
dren. 

Though you know that Mrs. Dash does not 
admire your friend, Mrs. Brown, and says 
really unkind and unjust things about her, 
think long and carefully before you go to Mrs. 
Brown with a clear account of Mrs. Dash's 
insincerity and critical speeches, because by 
repeating these false and foolish remarks one 
often does more harm than good, and one only 

[83] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

succeeds in arousing useless anger and sus- 
picion, and in rudely humbling the very sacred 
pride and vanity of those whom one should 
protect from all the little slings and arrows of 
silly and ungenerous gossip. 

Again, if your object and ambition is to 
keep the course of your friendships smooth 
and straight, do not ever succumb to the some- 
times sorely tempting, but always annoying, 
propensity for giving unasked advice. How- 
ever well you may know a man or a woman, 
and however dearly you may love and long to 
aid the friend who, in your eyes, seems to be 
following the very most injurious and mis- 
taken line of action, do not venture your re- 
monstrances and suggestions until you are 
very positive that they will be received in the 
spirit in which both are offered. 

How often, oh, how often! have I seen the 
best of friends forced far apart by the un- 
timely interference of one in the very private 
affairs of another, and I myself have claimed 
and lost the good-will of one who would insist 

[8 4 ] 



HOW TO BE A FRIEND 

on advising me in the management of my ser- 
vants, who would persist in holding up to me 
her own good example as a housekeeper, who 
was eager to improve on my methods of feed- 
ing my pets, and who offered me suggestions 
even in the spending of my pocket money. 
She was never able to realize that there are 
some familiarities that the most intimate and 
the most forbearing cannot endure and that 
the most humble-minded resent. 

I have never had reason to regret that to my 
oldest and my dearest friends I give my ad- 
vice, if it is asked, with considerable caution, 
and when Mrs. A. pours out to me a woeful 
tale of domestic troubles, or tells me of some of 
her social difficulty, I do not begin by treating 
her confidence as an opportunity to make her 
see her mistakes and to show her how I think 
she ought to rectify them. 

I have lived to learn that a tale of private 
unhappiness, the overflowings of a heart filled 
with trouble, or a confession, which is often 
the result of a secret consciousness of faulty 

[ 85 ] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

behaviour, is not always so much the demand 
for advice as it is a request for sympathy. I 
then listen and condole, encourage and sug- 
gest, and I never cite my own behaviour as a 
model to follow in the successful treatment of 
difficulties. I have found on the whole that 
in friendship there is nothing so precious 
as the 

DIVINE INFLUENCE OF SYMPATHY 

^^ND to exert a truly sympathetic interest 
in your friends is to enable you to enjoy 
lasting friendships which are very fine feathers 
in your cap. One way to display intelligent 
sympathy is to make full and kindly allow- 
ances for a friend's peculiarities. Find out 
what these are and do not try to change, cor- 
rect, or come into conflict with them. 

As soon as you make a friend learn the na- 
ture of his little idiosyncrasies and respect 
them. John Brown may be the very best of 
fellows and as sensible as possible, and yet he 
may also be very easily annoyed by teasing, 
[86] 



HOW TO BE A FRIEND 

and he may resent any fun made of his red 
hair or any reference to his size. 

On the other hand, Mabel Jones, a charm- 
ing, good-natured and generous woman, will 
not in the least object to a jest about the shape 
of her nose, but will show great annoyance if 
her books are injured or if an engagement is 
broken or postponed. To you these peculiar- 
ities may seem quite childish, nevertheless 
you must be ready to treat them very respect- 
fully if you wish to keep Mr. Brown or Miss 
Jones as your friends, and also if you wish 
that they in turn would show patience with 
your small weaknesses and tolerance of your 
odd prejudices. 

It is a sign of the real affection you have for 
Miss Jones that you are very careful to re- 
turn her books promptly and in perfect con- 
dition, that you never keep her waiting for you 
on a street corner, and in no better way can 
you display your true regard for Mr. Brown 
than by forbearing ever to jest at his scant 
inches. 

[87] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

To take a liberty with a friend is one of the 
means by which you can most promptly and 
effectively alienate his affection, and to cher- 
ish your friend wisely and well you must re- 
spect his reserves and never thoughtlessly out- 
rage his delicately sensitive amour propre. 

Brief indeed will you find possible an inti- 
macy and association with any one, how- 
ever charming, kind and sweet tempered she 
or he may be, who is yet hopelessly indifferent 
to your preferences and prejudices. No mat- 
ter, then, how tried and true your friend may 
be, do not borrow her belongings without first 
asking her permission, or when borrowing, 
fail to return the thing that has been loaned 
promptly and in good condition. Do not in- 
trude on your friend during his busy hours, 
break engagements with him recklessly, or 
criticise a member of his family, or repeat 
anything that he has said to you in confidence. 

Because you have known Mr. A. or John 
B. long and intimately you are by no means 
warranted in constantly testing and trying 

[88] 



HOW TO BE A FRIEND 

their patience and their affection; their good- 
will is to be enjoyed by you, but not abused, 
and I find that as many friendships die sad 
and natural deaths from thoughtless pre- 
sumption, displayed on one side or another, 
as from that famous canker in the rose known 
as hypersensitiveness. 

If one mistake more than all others pre- 
vents warm and long-sustained friendships it 
is the harboring of 

DOUBTS AND SUSPICIONS 

u 7~0 be popular and to be chosen often and 
flatteringly as a friend, you must control 
and overcome any and all inclinations to 
eagerly notice and misinterpret every careless 
word and action of another into a slight or an 
insult intended for yourself. 

Greatly to our sorrow and our discomfort 
do we all well know the friend who is mor- 
bidly ready to take offence. He is the victim of 
a wretched weakness that grows rapidly with 
encouragement, for it is sad but quite certain 

[89] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

that he who looks for slights can always find 
them, and he who is always finding them be- 
comes a trial to himself and to those who try 
to engage his affections. My cheerful philos- 
ophy is this: that if a friend is worth having 
he is worth trusting, and I regard it as^the very 
hall-mark of good-breeding and good char- 
acter to persuade yourself to deal trustfully 
with your friends and to regard them as above 
the suspicion of wrong-doing in your behalf. 

Women, I am sorry to say, are often more 
prone to suspicions than men. The repre- 
sentatives of the sterner sex are apt to take 
their friends with a large measure of sturdy 
confidence. They do not weigh words and 
actions so carefully as do their sisters, and for 
the reason that they are less fault-finding and 
less resentful of little mistakes, they keep 
their friends longer and with less difficulty. 

There is no more distressing problem to 
deal with, I think, than that one, both familiar 
and unpleasant, and presented by the friend 
who is charmingly kind and cordial to-day 

[90] 



HOW TO BE A FRIEND 

and who wears to-morrow a frozen smile and 
the distant look of one whose feelings are 
deeply wounded. It is impossible to tell — 
unless careful investigations are made — just 
what has happened to change her state of 
mind. Sometimes it is best, if you know her 
well, to wait good humoredly for her indigna- 
tion to cool and for your own smiling disre- 
gard of her anger to have a beneficent effect. 

Again, it may be necessary to have an ex- 
planation, and when the explanation is made, 
lo and behold! it is the veriest trifle that has 
roused the little tempest in a teapot — a trifle 
that she should have had the confidence and 
the courage to ignore, for while it may seem 
cruel to say so I must set down, for the 
perusal of sensitive persons, the plain, and, 
perhaps for them, the helpful, truth that 
their friendship, when it is overshadowed by 
their own foolish mistrustfulness and over- 
wrought imagining of evil, is likely in the end 
to become a bore and a burden. 

To one who really suffers from hypersensi- 

[91] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

tiveness I can comfortingly write the assur- 
ance that the way 

TO BE AN IDEAL FRIEND 

to remember that the average man or 
woman is apt to be honest, and having 
proved in various ways a sense of true pleas- 
ure in your company, is not immediately anx- 
ious to hurt or offend you. 

Do not, then, fret because your note or letter 
is not promptly answered, do not grow angry 
with Mr. Blank because he fails to call as soon 
as etiquette requires after your ball. Because 
Mrs. Blank does not ask you to her house for 
a long time there is no reason to believe that 
she is thereby adopting a means of showing 
you that she no longer cares for your society 
or has forgotten you. 

The ideal friend bears with her friend's in- 
firmities, thinks no evil of them, and after 
their long silences and absences counts them 
as dear and accepts them as heartily and 
gladly as ever. She knows that she is too 

[92] 



HOW TO BE A FRIEND 

fallible and thoughtless herself to exact the 
perfection of conduct in those she loves. 

Such a one I am happy to know and to ad- 
mire in the person of a woman who exercises 
a delightful common-sense in making allow- 
ances. She does not look annoyed when 
Miss Brown sends one brief letter in answer 
to her three long ones; she is not in the least 
offended when Miss Jones is asked to pour tea 
at Mrs. Blank's big reception, while she is 
only invited as a guest in ordinary, and she 
never thinks it at all queer when you give her 
a book at Christmas and to someone else, of 
less long and intimate standing, a gold hatpin 
or a cut-glass vase. 

But for all this sweetness and serene good- 
nature she has her reward, for to know her is 
to love her, and to love her there are many of 
both sexes who take both pride and pleasure 
in claiming her affection and in recounting her 
virtues. 

Additionally, and to her credit, I must state 
the fact that she rarely or never loses the in- 

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terest and devotion of a true comrade and in- 
timate, because, with Sidney Smith, she very 
ardently believes in 

EXPLANATIONS BETWEEN FRIENDS 

"J AM for frank explanations with friends in 
case of affronts," writes that famous wit 
and divine; "they sometimes save perishing 
friendship and even place it on a firmer basis 
than at first, but secret discontent always ends 
badly." I quote so high an authority as this 
because I always advocate the value of life- 
long friendships, which are sometimes only 
to be maintained by resorting to an explana- 
tion in times of difficulty. I so often hear an 
intelligent man or woman say, "Mrs. Blank 
was my friend for years and I never knew why 
she fell out with me." 

Is it not very possible that an explanation 
in time would have restored Mrs. Blank's 
good-nature and regained her good-will, and 
would it not have been well worth while tak- 
ing time and trouble to do so ? for it is not 

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HOW TO BE A FRIEND 

possible to be called a delightful and a valu- 
able companion if you make and break 
friendships easily. Ask yourself these ques- 
tions and see what answer true sentiment and 
common-sense will give. 

"The friends thou hast, and their adoption 
tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of 
steel, ,, is a flash of the noblest sentiment from 
the lips of old Polonius. If, then, you are sure 
that a friend of long standing is decidedly out 
of temper with you, for some reason that you 
cannot comprehend; if you know that that 
friend is neither a foolish, fickle nor over-sensi- 
tive person, and if you want to give him proof 
positive that you are not only innocent of all 
intention to wound or neglect him, but that 
you are sincere in your friendship for him, 
wait a little while to see if the difficulty will 
not pass. Then if he persists in a formal 
and resentful manner toward you, frankly ask 
him what has occurred to vex or annoy him. 

"I see that you are displeased over some- 
thing that has been said or done. Will you 

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not tell me what has happened and give me a 
chance to clear up the misunderstanding? " is 
what you can write or say. 

Between friends the simply expressed and 
cordial little note that asks for an explana- 
tion is better than the formal visit and the 
verbal invitation to talk the matter over. 
{See chapter 2, page 62.) But however you 
may approach your friend be sure that you 
listen patiently to his grievance, and when you 
have asked for an explanation make it your 
duty to come, if possible, to an amiable un- 
derstanding of the difficulty. 

He may prove to be annoyed over a trifle or 
to have hopelessly misunderstood or mis- 
judged you; you may think his resentment 
silly and unnatural, but don't try to make that 
point of view clear to him. Strive not to 
show that he is wrong, but that you had no in- 
tention of hurting his feelings, and that not 
only are you sorry to have misled him, but that 
you regard him as too generous-minded and 
too sincere not to forgive and forget. 

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HOW TO BE A FRIEND 

Is there ever a circumstance, I have some- 
times been asked, in which, when angered 
with a friend, one possesses the privilege of 
writing and taxing him with his mistake and 
requesting an explanation or an apology? 
Indeed, there is never an occasion on which an 
accusatory letter can be sent to your friend, 
but many are the occasions on which you can 
volunteer a note asking for forgiveness. 

Such an occasion presents itself when you 
are aware of having been thoughtlessly guilty 
of neglect, when you know that you carelessly 
committed an indiscretion that may hurt Miss 
A.'s feelings, when you heedlessly left her out 
of a pleasure party, failed to return a borrowed 
book, parasol, etc., in good time and in per- 
fect condition, or allowed her to leave your 
house after the card party without a suitable 
escort. 

Do not in these circumstances wait to see if 
she will resent your rudeness or negligence. 
Go to her or write to her at once and say how 
deeply sorry you are that you made your in- 

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appropriate remark, or failed to call upon her 
sister who came to visit in your town. 

When you have won pardon for your mis- 
take make no further reference to the little 
difficulty, and bear in mind that rarely will you 
be called upon to offer apologies or accept 
with pain the loss of the affection of a dear 
fidus Achates if you are invariably 

LOYAL AND SINCERE 

^T^O be loyal and honest and very high- 
minded and as trustworthy as you are 
affectionate, do not discuss your friends in 
any but an admiring and kindly way. Sooner 
or later they will learn of and naturally deeply 
resent it if you take their names ever so little 
in vain. When you call a woman or a man 
your friend remember that you must always 
protect them from any slander or even little 
jesting criticism. 

Never gossip over your friends, discuss 
their mistakes and laugh at their little foibles. 
You may be perfectly conscious of each and 

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HOW TO BE A FRIEND 

every one of their shortcomings, but do not 
show to the rest of the world that you are 
aware of them. It is cruelly insincere to ac- 
cept a woman's confidence and devotion and 
then betray both because you find yourself 
among people who don't like her and who are 
sharply commenting on her errors and short- 
comings. 

The temptation in such circumstances is to 
chime in and admit a little scornfully that she 
does dye her hair, and that your friend, Miss 
Brown, has the worst possible taste, and to 
joke gaily at the expense of Mr. Blank; but 
this temptation you must resist if you wish to 
show that you take friendships as sacred 
trusts, which they are. 

And it is never the least difficult to protect a 
friend from aspersions cast upon him. Sup- 
pose you do know that your college chum has 
made a rather comic failure of his married 
life, or that Mrs. Blank is positively the most 
careless housekeeper and the worst dressed 
woman in town; if you claim them as friends 

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and if you are loyal you will not sit com- 
placently by and hear the woes of your chum 
and the mistakes of Mrs. Blank exaggerated 
and dwelt upon in order to afford a laugh or 
diversion for a careless group of talkers. 

At the moment it is not necessary for you 
to emphatically contradict the assertions of 
others, or entangle yourself in a hot discussion 
as you take up the cudgels in behalf of the ab- 
sent and defenceless ones, but safely and prop- 
erly and amiably you can say and you should 
say: 

"I fear that you are not just to Mr. Blank 
and I am glad to say something in his behalf, 
for he is an old friend of mine, and if you 
knew him as well as I do you would have no 
difficulty in understanding his case and his 
mistakes/' or, "You don't know it, perhaps, 
but Mrs. Blank is a very good friend of mine, 
and I assure you it would distress me greatly 
to hear any unkind things said of her." 

A comment of this nature exerts not only a 
good effect in stopping words of ridicule and 
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HOW TO BE A FRIEND 

slander, but it serves the excellent purpose of 
commanding for you instant respect and 
admiration. Some moral courage, self-con- 
trol and good-nature it is necessary to exert 
in thus promptly speaking, but courage can 
never be so well displayed, I think, as in the 
effort to fulfil your highest and finest duty as 
a friend. 



hoi] 



CHAPTER FOUR 



THE WOMAN ADMIRED BY MEN 

Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, shall win 
my love. Shakespeare 

rHE advice here offered is meant for 
the woman, and especially the young 
woman, who desires her modest share 
of masculine admirers, who has them not, and 
who would willingly learn how she must first 
attract and then keep them devoted to her 
shrine in the best and most friendly fashion. 

My experience and my observation have 
been wide enough to guarantee me in the be- 
lief that there are many, many women who 
cherish this desire, and I hold it to be not only 
very right but very necessary for every charm- 
[102] 



THE WOMAN ADMIRED BY MEN 

ing spinster to prize and possess the interest 
and the esteem of nice men. 

Usually it is the one-sided and privately 
disappointed girl who says, not in her own 
heart, but boldly and in public, that mascu- 
line admiration is not worth having, and that 
feminine society only is quite satisfactory and 
sympathetic. 

You, however, oh true daughter of Eve, 
know better than this. You are too natural, 
broad-minded and sweet-hearted to take so 
narrow a view of so important a situation. 
You are aware that what Lowell calls "earth's 
noblest thing, a woman perfected/' is one who 
has the capacity to win friends of both sexes, 
and while you are not pining after beaux, flir- 
tation experiences and matrimonial opportu- 
nities, you still long to exercise something of 
the pretty art of making men like you and take 
pleasure in your company. 

This longing does credit to both your heart 
and your head and, just for the sake of argu- 
ment and illustration, I shall take for granted 

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that you are one of those girls who has not had 
what we may call the most advantageous 
social opportunities. 

Perhaps you were brought up in a small 
town, or, rather, isolated country neighbour- 
hood, whence all the young men early fled 
westward in search of the alluring dollar. 
Perhaps you had no brothers, and perhaps, 
after school and college days, you became a 
serious-minded little bread-winner. Thus, 
for these or some other and equally good rea- 
sons, you have waked up in your twenty-fifth 
year, or thereabouts, to the distressing con- 
sciousness that you have not the happy faculty 
of placing the ordinary pleasing representa- 
tive of the sterner sex at his ease. 

Your keen eyes and your common-sense 
prove to you that the agreeable young men 
you chance to meet are always perfectly re- 
spectful and faultlessly civil to you, but their 
interest appears to end there. They are not 
among your calling acquaintances; they do 
not seem inclined to offer you the pleasant 
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THE WOMAN ADMIRED BY MEN 

little attentions that help to fill up your cup 
of simple pleasures; they do not promptly 
and flatteringly beg you for dances, when you 
now and then attend a ball; they show no 
particular enthusiasm when meeting you once 
and again at the homes of your girl friends; 
nor do they listen to what you have to say as 
though your opinion was either interesting or 
important. 

And thus you arrive at very disconcerting 
and melancholy conclusions, no doubt. You 
cannot but realize that something very de- 
lightful and necessary is being left out of your 
life, and I think I can safely guess that you 
look about yourself and at your women 
friends and wonder, very impatiently, just 
why it is that they succeed where you fail. 
Or in secret bitterness of spirit you peep into 
your mirror and decide that because you have 
not curly hair, a complexion of milk and roses, 
and a nose of faultless outline, you are in one 
sense a social failure and that your misfor- 
tune is past remedy. 

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Indeed it is not, and I was just a bit sur- 
prised not long since to hear a clever girl say, 
with a cynical little laugh, that only the fair 
attract the brave, and men admire none but 
those women whom Heaven has blessed in a 
most liberal fashion with 

BEAUTY AND BRAINS 

OHE should, I think, have known better 
than that, but her remark gives me an 
excuse for writing down the following sug- 
gestions that are intended for the assistance 
and correction of any misguided young lady 
who is inclined to agree with her, and who be- 
lieves that beauty, when it is a mere matter of 
a fair face, and brains that is only bookish 
learning, are what render a woman irresistibly 
fascinating. 

Girls I have known who were beautiful, 
and girls I have known who were wise be- 
yond their sex and their years, and yet neither 
were able to retain the least bit of belleship, 
and consequently I wish to go on record as 
[io6] 



THE WOMAN ADMIRED BY MEN 

saying that there is a special kind of loveli- 
ness and lore that invariably renders a woman 
attractive to men whether she is as beautiful 
as Helen of Troy or as plain as Jane Eyre. 
It is a kind of loveliness and lore that all 
women can possess, that is quite irresistible, 
and that is commonly known as charm. 

Feminine charm is what I mean, and you 
should not, dear perusing spinster, feel the 
least discouraged by that announcement. 
Charm is not so mysterious a quality after all, 
and you can be charming by cultivating many 
pretty simple ways of doing and saying pretty 
simple things, and by studying how to show 
the sweetest and most graceful side of your 
nature. 

Maybe no one ever told you that there ex- 
ists a very positive 

CHARM IN WOMAN'S DRESS 

that men are keenly sensitive to it. 
Therefore, whether you consider your- 
self good to look at or not, remember that 
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your dress is a matter of paramount impor- 
tance in creating a first impression and in ex- 
citing the most valuable kind of admiration. 

Unless you are very beautiful, or gifted with 
that wonderful quality called personal mag- 
netism, never scorn the assistance of the toilet. 
I would not have you misunderstand me so far 
as to think that I am advocating gay, expen- 
sive and elaborate clothes. Indeed, I only 
urge the advantages of the costume that is ex- 
quisitely neat, always becoming as possible, 
and wholly feminine. 

Let me assure you that while the mascu- 
line mind seems unable to grasp the details of 
furbelows, and is frankly ignorant as to the 
delicacies of fashions, it is very promptly and 
positively alive as to the daintiness and ap- 
propriateness of womanly garments. 

I could a tale unfold of the encomiums won 
from masculine lips by a youthful friend of 
mine who had very little indeed of what we 
call intrinsic beauty, and who was scantily 
provided with pin money. She possessed, 
[io8j 



THE WOMAN ADMIRED BY MEN 

however, the capacity for wearing her simple 
little gowns to the greatest advantage. She 
adopted soft colours, she pinned her hair so 
tidily and becomingly on her head that, 
though it really was not handsome hair, it im- 
pressed you as something very agreeable to 
look at; and severely plain as were most of 
her cotton frocks, she always had a bit of soft 
lace at her neck that saved them from looking 
prim and hard and old-maidish. 

Her hats were invariably the smartest that 
our village milliner turned out, because she 
never allowed them to be overtrimmed with 
gaudy finery, and in all the years I knew her 
she did not attempt one masculine affectation 
of dress. 

She was clever enough and dainty enough 
to know that a tousled head, a pair of unpol- 
ished shoes, dingy, buttonless gloves, etc., are 
something more than trifles that strike men 
as well as women unpleasantly, and I have 
seen her at a tea party, in an old and often 
washed organdy, appear to far more advan- 
f 109] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

tage than another, but positively pretty neigh- 
bour, who was arrayed in a vivid yellow-and- 
green silk. 

The silk was new, and costly as well, but 
many were the young men asking to be pre- 
sented to the charming girl in blue, who 
passed, with a puzzled stare, the wearer of the 
garments of many colours and flowers. She, 
poor girl, disguised her real beauty by her 
garish gown and giddy hat, just as I have so 
often seen a delightfully accomplished and 
clever woman fail to attract her proper circle 
of admirers because she had not heard of or 
accepted the advice of so eminent an authority 
upon feminine fascination as Shakespeare 
himself, and learned what it is to 

BE KIND 

*Z?E actively and demonstratively kind by 
look and by word. Make kindliness a 
part of your beauteous looks, for this is a 
charm that age cannot wither nor custom 
stale, and to which all men bow with the 
[no] 



THE WOMAN ADMIRED BY MEN 

readiest and gladdest acknowledgment. They 
like and they feel drawn toward the woman 
who has a simple, friendly and thoroughly 
amiable way with her, whose eyes look bright 
with a quick, sweet-tempered, upward glance, 
whose mouth is ready to curve into a smile, 
and who seems to regard everybody as worth 
her friendly interest. 

Here and there, and not infrequently, I 
have chanced to meet nice girls and pretty 
girls who made the really pathetic mistake of 
thinking that in order to strike admiration 
and respect to the heart of the average young 
man it was both becoming and necessary to 
assume a very proud, cold and reserved man- 
ner. 

This manner the heroines of many noveh 
and interesting short stories do preserve with 
good effect, I grant, but in real life it is a very 
disagreeable and unprofitable demeanour. If 
you take upon you the air of a very dignified 
young goddess, you will be considered by the 
major portion of the masculine world as hard 

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and unsympathetic and unapproachable, and 
thus you win an unenviable reputation that is 
difficult to live down. 

Men, and especially young men, believe 
me, are not nearly so brave and bold as they 
are supposed to be. The ordinary well-bred, 
high-minded young man of to-day can and 
will face burglars, wild beasts and the guns of 
his country's enemies without faltering, but 
his courage is apt to ooze right out of him 
when he is obliged to appear before a very 
stately, very dignified young lady. 

Instead of wishing to break through her 
reserve he wishes to run away; he finds her so 
alarming that no matter how fair her face may 
be, or how great her reputation for wisdom, 
he cannot bring himself to either like or ad- 
mire her. At the first opportunity he will 
leave her side in order to find a seat near a 
girl whose waist may be thick, whose face may 
not be innocent of freckles, but who is not too 
shy or too reserved to be other than sweetly 
friendly. What attracts him to the latter is 

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THE WOMAN ADMIRED BY MEN 

her evident kindness, her quick, warm way of 
holding out her hand and saying "how do you 
do " as though his appearance gave her pleas- 
ure, and the genuinely interested little fashion 
in which she draws aside her frills to make a 
place for him on the sofa, saying, "I hear 
you have been way out in the West since I 
last met you; do tell me what you saw and 
did there!" 

Then, as he tries to tell her the news of 
himself, she looks so sparkling with interest, 
she bursts into little oh's and ah's of enthu- 
siasm, she laughs so willingly at his jokes 
and puts so much heart and heartiness into 
the mere business of drawing out the story of 
his trip that he finds her the most agreeable 
kind of a companion. He feels so full of con- 
fidence and so much at his ease in her pres- 
ence that when next he meets her at a dance 
or a reception, or a luncheon in the woods, he 
makes haste to find a place near her and tries 
again to see her eyes grow bright and hear her 
nice voice. 

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What constitutes a large part of her charm 
in his eyes is her cheerfulness, for 

THE WOMAN WHOM MEN ADMIRE 

never melancholy or self-conscious, and 
she usually has the mother wit and discre- 
tion to believe that hearts are pretty much 
alike, whether they beat under nankeen waist- 
coats or chiffon blouses, and are to be con- 
quered by very nearly the same means. 

Men as well as women she knows are more 
pleased and flattered to be coaxed into talking 
than to be forced into listening, and, there- 
fore, when such a woman is introduced to Mr. 
Jones, or set down at dinner beside Mr. 
Brown, she warms the genial currents of his 
soul by trying to talk to him about himself 
rather than about herself. 

This is indeed a point that so many truly 
clever modern girls fail to make. You stand 
accused so often, my dear college graduate 
and literary maiden, of trying to take too lofty 
a tone in your conversations with young men. 

[in] 



THE WOMAN ADMIRED BY MEN 

You are just a bit proud of and arrogant with 
all your splendid knowledge, and when you 
meet Mr. Blank you want to talk about 
Browning and Parsifal, when poor Mr. Blank 
really has never read one line of that poet's 
work, and does not know one note of music 
from another. 

Or if you do not make this mistake you fall 
into the equally fatal error of allowing your- 
self to be very easily bored and of looking 
superior and difficult to please. This is what 
the woman admired by man never does. She 
never allows the fact that she speaks four lan- 
guages and plays Beethoven beautifully to 
interfere with her popularity; she has not a 
condescending manner, and she does not take 
interest only in the man who can speak lan- 
guages, too, and understand Wagner and 
Strauss. 

Such a fine example of feminine tact and 
sweetness I can recall even now in the person 
of a fragile, gentle, plainly gowned little lady, 
who could put the shyest of men at his ease in 

["5] 



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a moment by her own self-effacement. She 
was an extraordinarily cultivated woman, but 
not only was she learned, she was sweet and 
generous as well, and these lovely qualities I 
saw her display as she listened with interest to 
a long talk on so dry a matter as real estate. 

A nice young fellow had taken her into din- 
ner. He was desperately shy, but she found 
out, after a little, that he knew a great deal of 
the business in which he was beginning, and 
could tell her much that was interesting con- 
cerning it, so upon real estate he talked and 
she questioned, and when dinner was over he 
vowed that in all his life he had never met a 
sweeter or a cleverer woman. 

AN UNMISTAKABLE BEAUTY 

therefore to be found in the mind of a 
kind and sweet-hearted woman, and the 
world in general, and men in particular, never 
try to resist the captivating influence of that 
member of her sex who is never anything but 
engagingly tolerant in speech. 

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THE WOMAN ADMIRED BY MEN 

Here gently, but positively, I wish to ad- 
monish any of my feminine readers against 
indulging in the dangerous habit of making 
sharp retorts. It is never wise and never kind 
to cultivate a caustic wit, and the easy trick of 
making sarcastic little comments upon men 
and things. 

Now, by experience and as the result of some 
investigation, I know that there are admirable 
and innately lovable girls who cherish the 
unfortunate idea that admired is the maiden 
who can speak very much to the point and 
with a biting humor, who can "set Mr. Jones 
down" smartly, and answer lively Mr. Brown 
with a few words that will make him wince. 

Oh, was there ever a greater mistake than 
this, or one more hurtful to a woman's popu- 
larity ? Rarely, rarely I am sure has there 
lived a girl who has employed such weapons 
to any advantage, and, while I ardently ad- 
vocate merriment and vivacity, I just as ar- 
dently deprecate the wit that is sharp and 
the false joy of holding others up to ridicule. 

["7] 



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None indeed have so thorough a detesta- 
tion of this method as men. They mistrust 
and dislike the girl who raises a laugh at the 
expense of Mr. Brown's queer, high voice and 
Mr. Jones's little grammatical slips, and they 
never forgive or forget any advantages taken 
of their social errors and weaknesses. 

In this they are by no means eccentric or hy- 
persensitive; they are only human. It is hard 
to bear the derisive laughter directed at our- 
selves. We wish to feel that our little foibles 
are overlooked and our faults forgiven, and the 
woman who can inspire her men friends with 
confidence in her charity of mind and heart, 
has laid hold on one of the secrets of popularity. 

She possesses, then, a great deal of that 
kindness to which Shakespeare refers, and 
which is nearly allied to 

A DELIGHTFUL OPTIMISM 

{ *T~0 be an optimistic young woman is to be 
able to show an even temper, rarely ruf- 
fled by trifles, and thus to win the esteem of 
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THE WOMAN ADMIRED BY MEN 

many men. The happy heroine of real life 
is not the heroine of the novel, who takes of- 
fence with appalling readiness, and who is 
difficult to please and placate. 

The happy heroine, for example, does not 
fall out easily with her men friends, nor for- 
give them reluctantly. She has what I think 
I had best call social grit and courage. She 
can take a trying situation cheerfully. When 
her pretty muslin frock is stepped upon by a 
careless young man at a dance she does not 
accept his blushing apology with an angry 
stare. She makes him ten times more re- 
pentant and everlastingly her admirer by 
saying: 

"Of course I forgive you. I know you are 
sorry, but accidents will happen, and if you 
will get a pin or two I think I can make it all 
right." 

When her escort is tardy, when her seat at 
the theatre is none of the best, and when Mr. 
A. and Mr. B. are dilatory in paying their 
duty calls, she does not look either disgusted 

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or insulted. Her good temper, then, gives 
her an influence that all men respect, and her 
willingness to be amused and to make the 
best of everything always excites their un- 
bounded admiration. 

Men are never slow to devoutly honor the 
girlish philosopher who does not lose her 
cheerfulness when a train is lost or late, who 
does not sulk because the rain fell on her best 
hat at the picnic, who is not given to fretting, 
frowning, worrying or complaining, and who 
is ever and always 

A WOMANLY WOMAN 

y*HE charm for men in the woman that is 
womanly lies, I am sure, in the perfect 
readiness with which she appeals to their 
masculine chivalry. Sometimes I fear that 
our very modern and independent girls don't 
realize that such a quality as chivalry exists 
as much to-day as in the time of Ivanhoe and 
the fair Rowena, and that it can be called 
forth and as graciously acknowledged as when 
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THE WOMAN ADMIRED BY MEN 

the steel-clad knights fared forth in the quest 
of wrongs to be made right. 

The truly womanly woman and the most 
agreeable woman is not the less self-confident, 
self-helpful and delightfully dignified because 
she accepts masculine services and masculine 
compliments with frank pleasure. She ad- 
mires men's courage, their strength and their 
courtesy; she delights in the deference they 
pay to her because she is a woman, and she is 
careful never herself to assume a manly little 
air of complete self-reliance and a total scorn 
of small feminine foibles. 

Men and women, indeed, are equals, but 
they are different, and no son of Adam feels 
just the same toward you if you put down 
your heels very hard when you walk, talk in a 
loud voice, refuse to have your parcels car- 
ried, insist upon paying your own car-fare, 
laugh at the idea of needing the support of an 
escort's arm, call a spade a spade without any 
reserves, and brusquely ignore Mr. Jones's 
pretty little speeches, and forget to thank the 

[121] 



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amiable young gentleman who offers you his 
seat in the public conveyance. 

Cultivate your mind, and win the biggest 
salary you can, and grow in strength of body, 
and play outdoor games with zest, but do not 
forget what excellent things in woman a low 
voice and a light step are; let your masculine 
companions open the door for you, rescue 
your handkerchief from the floor, move your 
chair, and remember that a man has written 
that "grace in woman has more effect than 
beauty." 



[122] 



CHAPTER FIVE 



THE CHILD WE LOVE 

/ know that a sweet child is the sweetest thing in nature. 

Chas. Lamb 

/N bringing up a child show it the way to 
make friends easily with other children 
and with the grown-ups as well. Remem- 
ber that courtesy, like love and languages, is 
most easily learned by very young people, 
that it is the kind of lore that lasts longest, 
and is used to the greatest advantage; that, 
as the twig is bent, the tree inclines, and that 
a sweet child, and a courteous one, always 
develops into an agreeable man or woman. 

Regard it, then, as a very serious parental 
duty to note as carefully whether your boy or 

I>3] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

girl is charming to the world outside the fam- 
ily circle as that they stand well in their 
classes, or enjoy stout digestions, and do not 
follow the course pursued by one really de- 
voted and typical mother, who gives time, 
thought and energy to the business of pushing 
her little daughter in her studies, while the 
child's training in what might be called the 
social graces is quite neglected. 

Again and again have Joan's teachers been 
changed until just the right influence, helpful 
to her progress in music, has been secured; and 
yet this doting parent is unaware that Joan is 
far from being a favourite among her school- 
mates. Joan, one can plainly see, is both lonely 
and discontented. She is not welcomed by the 
neighbours' children, nor happy at school, and 
the explanations offered by the mother for 
this sad condition are that the little daughter 
is not understood, that she is too clever for 
the others, or that she is very reserved. 

Nevertheless, this most forlorn little maiden 
that ever wore a pigtail braid down her back 

[ 124] 



THE CHILD WE LOVE 

could be helped to win a great deal of popu- 
larity — which, childlike, she craves, but 
which, childlike, she does not know exactly 
how to gain — if her mother would only help 
her to win it as thoroughly and steadily as she 
aids her in acquiring such marvelous facility 
with sharps and flats on the piano. 

It would not be either an arduous or thank- 
less task to make this disconsolate bit of hu- 
manity see why her play-days are out of joint, 
and better is it, I think, and more prideful 
and possible and admirable, on the whole, 
to be the parent of 

A LOVABLE CHILD 

< 7" fc 'HAN one who is either remarkably beau- 
tiful, or gifted with a wonderfully preco- 
cious mind. A cheerful and gracious, sweet 
and obliging manner will render even a slow- 
minded, pale-faced and poorly dressed little 
one quite irresistible to grown-ups, and posi- 
tively enchanting to its playmates, and in 
teaching a child that is unendowed with nat- 

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ural charm the little ways that are ways of 
pleasantness, instruct it in something more 
than the proper use of its knife and fork, the 
advantages of sitting still and straight, and of 
replying civilly when spoken to. 

These are the rudiments of etiquette in 
which the average parent drills Jerry and 
Joan, and then leaves the youngsters to learn 
all the rest of what makes for charming man- 
ner quite by themselves. 

I approve frankly and earnestly of the ru- 
diments of etiquette for Jerry and his sister, 
for I do not believe that a knowledge of good 
social usage is ever lost on an intelligent child, 
but you must go very much more deeply into 
the matter than this. Tell your young pupils 
fully and frankly that one of the surest ways 
by which to arouse prompt dislike, is to wear 
a cloudy countenance and to insist positively 
upon having one's own way. 

Children, believe me, are more often mis- 
taken than deliberately ungracious. They 
have only a brief experience by which to judge 

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THE CHILD WE LOVE 

life and others, and even the smallest boy or 
girl can learn the good uses and the beauty of 
that delightful motto of a delightful French 
woman, who wrote that "one of the most ef- 
fectual ways of pleasing and of making oneself 
loved is to be cheerful. ,, 

Give Joan and Jerry a literal translation of 
the meaning of this by explaining to them 
that a charming person comes down to break- 
fast with an amiable countenance, and that a 
charming child has a cheerfully willing way 
of lending her toys, of letting another child 
play with them, and of occasionally and good 
naturedly yielding a point or a place in a 
game. 

Avoid, in your teaching, the mistaken 
course of saying to a naturally moody Jerry 
and natively imperious Joan, that behaviour 
is right or wrong, and that there is an end to 
all argument. This is just a stern and dis- 
agreeable abstract truth that has little influ- 
ence upon juvenile minds. Follow, therefore, 
the other and the more helpful way of saying 
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that good-humour is the best of luck pieces that 
Jerry can carry in his pocket. Tell him that 
it buys friends, that it makes others speak well 
and pleasantly of him, and do not hesitate to 
let Joan realize that it is necessary to be gen- 
erous in order to gain an influence over her 
young friends and, better still, in order to 
have her own way about many things and 
with many children. This is a philosophy 
that the young intellect can grasp, for it is 
only a rare and very abnormally wrong- 
minded youngster who does not wish to be 
admired and liked. To observe such princi- 
ples and methods is to establish 

A KINDERGARTEN OF COURTESY 

T^T/^HICH, for the sake of sweet children, 
should exist in every household, and, as 
the wise, kind head thereof, you cannot afford 
to be indifferent when you see or hear that 
Joan, for example, is not living in peace and 
good-will with her back-yard chums. Look 
upon such a situation seriously and don't let 

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THE CHILD WE LOVE 

your natural love for Joan blind you to the fact 
that when she cannot get on with others of her 
own age, the fault lies somewhere in her own 
shortcomings. She may be a dear and a 
clever child, but she will not be popular if you 
have neglected to show her the injury of such 
a habit as that of using loud and hectoring 
tones when playing games, and if you do not 
impress upon her the wrong she does herself 
in accusing others of trifling with her things 
when her book or pencil is mislaid, and of 
taking offence at the lightest spoken word. 

Promptly and clearly she can comprehend 
her mistake if you will point it out to her, in 
failing to offer bits of her own fruit and cake 
to her playfellows at the luncheon hour, and 
of criticising the contents of Susie's and 
Marie's baskets. Make it your rule not to 
take her childish quarrels with a smile and 
the comfortable conclusion that children are 
best left to fight out their own squabbles 
among themselves. Encourage Joan and 
Jerry to tell you what their troubles are all 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

about, ask them to give you a very truthful 
account of the dispute with the neighbour's 
children, and if your good judgment convinces 
you that your boy and girl have been in the 
wrong, show them how to apologize for their 
mistakes, harsh words or downright rudeness. 

Instruct them in the way of saying prompt- 
ly and sweetly "I am sorry I was rude, I hope 
you will forgive me," and, at the same time, 
holding out a hand in order to ratify the 
pretty bargain with a hearty shake. If Joan 
can and will apologize in graceful fashion, 
never fear but that she will always keep her 
friends, and when you have taught her how to 
ask forgiveness for her rough retorts or selfish 
actions follow up the good work by teaching 
her and her brother the highest meaning of 
the words, Lady and Gentleman. 

A Lady, inform Joan, is not merely that 
grown-up individual, so well known in nur- 
sery lectures, who is only very careful con- 
cerning her table manners, strictly tidy in her 
dress, and particular about the way she sits 

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THE CHILD WE LOVE 

and walks. A Lady, teach your children to 
regard as a person who does everything to 
please, and it will please Joan more than you 
can perhaps at first guess, to be called a lady 
for doing charming and graceful little acts, 
for running an errand with an air of enjoying 
a privilege, for picking up the scissors or a 
handkerchief with an obliging little manner, 
and controlling her temper when sorely tried 
by an undisciplined young caller. 

A truly sweet child is always a genuine lady 
in miniature, and a sweet child is not one of 
those small social offenders that I can best 
describe as 

A JUVENILE SNOB 

CNOBBISHNESS is indeed not only a 
common complaint among children, but 
unless it is early corrected it easily becomes a 
chronic fault that follows the adult all through 
life. A snobbish child, I find, is often a clever 
and a pretty one, but sooner or later it ren- 
ders itself quite insufferable to kindly minded 

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little ones. When, then, your Jerry or your 
Joan shows an inclination to indulge in open 
boasting and comparisons that are odious, do 
not hesitate to correct their grievous mistake 
as thoroughly as you would their stooping 
shoulders or ungrammatical English. 

Represent to the children it is quite as 
wrong to laugh at the shabbiness of Jacky 
Jones's old coat, or comment on the plain fare 
served in the home of Marie Brown as it is to 
tell a fib or strike a defenceless animal. 
Make them see that, by talking of their own 
splendours and superior possessions, and by 
remarking on the ugly gingham that a little 
schoolmate wears, they hurt the feelings of 
their friends and place themselves in a dis- 
agreeable light, for so often a child is cruel 
through ignorance and not by intention. 
Quite the most snobbish little miss of my ac- 
quaintance is in the habit of smoothing out 
the fine embroidered frills of her dainty 
dresses, and wondering aloud and most dis- 
paragingly why her playmate across the way 



THE CHILD WE LOVE 

wears such coarse lace on her cotton frocks. 
She explains that she cannot play with the 
little Blanks, who dwell around the corner, 
because they live in such a wretched house 
and have only broken toys. 

And at all her (so-called) quaint remarks 
her parents only smile indulgently. They 
consider her little air of lofty superiority as 
rather amusing and original, and something 
she will get over bye and bye. The mother of 
that exquisitely clad maiden of seven is not 
kind enough or clever enough to teach her 
child first and above all things to respect the 
failings of others and then to accept children 
for what they are and not for what they wear, 
or own, or eat. 

To the parents of every boy and girl I 
recommend most heartily the sage 

COUNSELS OF JOUBERT 

66 J~~N bringing up a child," he says, "think of 
its old age." In bringing up a child, let 
me add, train it also to be extraordinarily 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

sweet, simple and kindly in its manner with 
servants. Your Joan and Jerry can never 
too thoroughly learn that it is not only civil 
but obligatory to give all domestics the politest 
of greetings night and morning. Numbers of 
little folks are allowed to grow up without 
ever hearing from their parents that servants 
have hearts to be touched and feelings to be 
respected quite in common with the rest of the 
human world ; and often enough, I regret to 
say, in the homes of wealthy members of so- 
ciety, do I meet with the Joan and Jerry who 
are permitted to look upon a servant as a con- 
venience, who ask to be served in tones of dis- 
agreeable command, who are allowed to con- 
tradict the housemaid flatly, tell the cook, 
with cool cruelty, that she has a red nose, and 
receive caution or advice from a coachman or 
the maid-of-all-work with a saucy, and some- 
times insolently smart retort. 

Now nothing, I think, counts so much for 
peace in the pathway of life as knowing how, 
when a child, to ask a favor of an employee 

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THE CHILD WE LOVE 

sweetly ; and the Joan who says " thank you " 
for a service done in her behalf, and who 
treats all domestics with a lovely courtesy, is 
the Joan who will be waited upon with alacrity 
and who will not, in her grown-up and matron 
days, find the servant problem difficult to 
solve. 

The best policy always in training your 
child to agreeable manners is to show her how 
to be liked by the kitchen people. Even 
when she is a mite of a thing do not allow her 
to raise her voice to argue with an employee 
of the household; teach her to thoughtfully 
lighten a servant's work by never flinging her 
things about, to give prompt obedience when 
a maid asks a favour or tries to carry out or- 
ders, and never be yourself too proud or in- 
different to insist upon an apology from Joan 
to a servant-man or woman when the child 
has been guilty of harsh words, of a rude and 
unkind behaviour. Servants of every class 
are keenly appreciative of sweetness in chil- 
dren, and have the most open admiration for 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

a charmingly deferential child. When, then, 
I hear that little Jean or Jacky is a tremendous 
favorite with the cook and the coachman, I 
find I am safe in believing that the child they 
adore is really lovable, and has lovely, gra- 
cious ways. 

Not less important, though, than the manner 
of your child with servants, is the manner of 
the little nursery people with their guests. 
Forbear to follow the very wrong modern way 
of teaching Joan and Jerry all about the wild 
flowers and the habits of the birds to the neg- 
lect of their education as entertainers, for if 
you want to boast that yours are popular chil- 
dren, then they must have more than a vague 
idea of the very real obligations of their 

YOUTHFUL HOSPITALITIES 

T DO not mean here to imply that Jerry and 
Joan must be instructed only in the duties 
of little host and hostess when a party is on 
foot or when a birthday celebration is to take 
place. From the Encyclopaedia of Etiquette, 

[136] 



THE CHILD WE LOVE 

page 403, you can quickly teach them all the 
pretty routine that a young folks' entertain- 
ment requires, but it is during the daily hours 
of play-time in the nursery, on the front 
lawn, or in the back yard, when another child 
comes to call, that your son and daughter 
should know, for their own sakes, how to be 
sweet and considerate. 

However young your children and modest 
your home, do not think that it is not both 
timely and important to teach the hospitable 
duties to Joan, who is only eight, and to Jerry, 
who is only ten. The earlier with them the 
better, when it is a matter of helping them 
to win true popularity ; and therefore do not 
delay in explaining to your son and daughter 
that, as host and hostess, of even a single 
back-yard guest, it is very necessary and most 
civil, to play those games the visitor prefers, 
rather than those that give Jerry and Joan the 
greatest pleasure; to give every young caller 
a few words of real greeting; to go forward 
to meet a newcomer with a welcoming man- 

[137] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

ner, and to leave a doll's tea party, a skipping 
rope, or a game in order to follow the departing 
visitor to the door or gate and say, " I am sorry 
that you have to go and glad that you came." 

Impress upon the young minds of your 
children that the duties of host and hostess re- 
quire some thought, a certain amount of ef- 
fort and now and then a real sacrifice of pref- 
erences and feelings. But try to make them 
also recognize that, in fulfilling these duties 
faithfully and sweetly, they render their home 
just twice as attractive to other children. 
Thus they will be able to appreciate the real 
advantage of bowing to the wise laws of hos- 
pitality, and your own good sense will allow 
you to see that a child who plays the host 
nicely is a child who knows how to be a de- 
lightful guest. 

Show your little girl, then, that, as a hostess, 
she must never help herself, even to a glass of 
water, until her guest is offered some and 
served. When Bob Brown is Jerry's guest, 
give Jerry to understand that Bob must have 

[138] 



THE CHILD WE LOVE 

the first and biggest cut from the cake, the 
best tennis racquet in the closet, and the lead, 
if he wishes, in any game, and then to such 
instruction add good advice against carrying 
further than the family circle the grievous tale 
of the small neighbour who came and played 
and broke nursery treasures, or the story of 
the little host who fell into a furious temper 
and rudely treated both Jerry and Joan who 
were his visitors. 

Never, never gossip in your children's pres- 
ence or allow them to bring you tales of 
strange doings in homes where they have 
played, and when their visitor misbehaves, or 
is the victim of an accident, teach them that 
much must be forgiven a guest. 

I can recall even now, with enthusiasm, the 
delightful manners of a maiden of ten, whose 
best beloved doll was broken by a rough- 
handed boy caller. For one moment the lit- 
tle hostess looked aghast, her lips shook and 
her eves filled, for Mabel was dear to her heart, 
but the little hostess's sweetness, her dignity 

[*39] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

and her sense of duty were equal to the trying 
situation. 

"It's too bad, of course," I overheard her 
say bravely, "but I am sure you could not 
help it; you mustn't feel too bad about it; 
come, let's play that you are a wolf and try to 
catch us." I don't think it is difficult or mis- 
taken to prophesy that the child who can so 
sweetly treat a guest will be sure to enjoy the 
highest popularity all her days, and I wish to 
add to the true beauty and usefulness of this 
incident by saying that this model hostess is 
one of six, and that the busy mother of the 
big family has taught her children their hos- 
pitable duty as carefully as she has taught 
them their alphabet and the leading facts of 
American history. 

She has taken good care that her boys and 
girls, who are not either pretty or gifted in any 
respect, shall at least grow up to be agree- 
able, and that their lack of fair faces and quick 
wits shall be more than compensated for by 
their charming manner, which, in all its sim- 
[140] 



THE CHILD WE LOVE 

plicity and winning grace, they have been 
taught to display 

IN RELATION TO GROWN FOLKS 

% *T~ T HIS manner, the taking way with adults, 
is never, believe me, the precocious way. 
Pray do not train your children to speak up 
smartly and show off a little before their eld- 
ers. That is not the behaviour that pleases, 
and if you wish to have your Joan admired by 
your friends, let her understand how to wait 
to be noticed by them. When she is spoken 
to or asked a direct question she should go 
forward at once, accept the notice given her 
and answer inquiries with a little smile and 
an air of feeling pleased and flattered at their 
condescension. 

She need answer only with yes or no, or 
by very brief sentences, but show her how to 
do this with a pretty, deferential manner, and 
to stand quite still before or beside Mrs. 
Blank's chair and look with frankness and at- 
tention at the person who addresses her. 

[hi] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

This kind of instruction is so very much 
more useful and necessary than painstakingly 
teaching Joan how to repeat verses before 
your friends or to play pieces on the piano. 
The way of your children to Mrs. Blank's 
heart is not through an exhibition of their 
smartness but by a demonstration of their 
sweetness, and no grown man or woman 
lives, I think, who is not highly delighted and 
flattered by a child's quick and willing ap- 
proach, by her gentle, respectful answers, and 
by her uplifted and interested eyes. 

It is just as easy to train Joan in pretty' be- 
haviour with the grown folk as it is to teach 
her to recite bits of French poems. Drill her 
so carefully and lovingly that when the matron 
caller says "come here, my dear," or, "is this 
your little daughter?" she will unhesitatingly 
advance, put out her hand, say "how do you 
do?" smile, and listen to all that is said to 
her as though your caller's words were words 
of particular wisdom. No matter how shy 
Joan may be she can, by her mother, be taught 

[ 142 ] 



THE CHILD WE LOVE 

that much, and really it is well worth while 
giving her this special and important instruc- 
tion; for if she has no beauty and no smart- 
ness to recommend her she can just by her 
manner make hearts her own. The memory 
of her sweet confidence will linger long in 
your friends' minds and most pleasantly, af- 
ter they have absolutely forgotten a self-con- 
scious little maid, with curls of spun gold and 
eyes of purest blue, who sulks and shrinks 
back or who stares in stolid silence when her 
acquaintance is asked. 

Therefore in this kind of social education 
make Joan quite letter-perfect and give so 
much care to her drilling that, without sug- 
gestion or prompting from you, she will at 
once advance and smile and listen and an- 
swer. What pleases a grown-up most in a 
child is that it seems glad to come forward, 
willing to leave its game a moment and be 
interested in what is said. Never try, then, to 
teach your child anything but a very becoming 
and flattering modesty of manner with adults, 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

and direct both your boy and girl to stand 
when strangers and their elders enter a room, 
to offer to carry little parcels, to run an er- 
rand, to quickly see and lift a handkerchief 
from the floor, and show your boy how to be a 
gallant little fellow. 

"I met a charming lad to-day," I heard one 
woman say to another not long ago. "Oh, I 
don't know who he was," she replied; "he 
was weeding a garden bed and his feet were 
bare and his sunburned face was quite cov- 
ered with freckles, but when I could not get 
through the lane gate he ran at once to open it 
for me and swung off his hat and bowed, and 
said it was a pleasure when I thanked him. I 
wish my son was like that," she concluded, 
almost wistful. 

I could have told her that the charming boy 
was a brother to the child who bore the injury 
to her doll so sweetly, and, though he goes 
barefoot in the summer-time and helps at the 
garden work, his parents have taught him 
that manners make the child as well as the 

[144] 



THE CHILD WE LOVE 

man, and that it is as necessary to his present 
happiness and his future welfare to show him- 
self unobtrusively pleasant to old and young 
as it is to attend his school regularly, to speak 
the truth and study his lessons. 



[145] 



CHAPTER SIX. 



A POPULAR NEIGHBOUR 

A bad neighbour is as great a misfortune as a good one is 
a great blessing. Heriod. 

rHE way to be a good neighbour is to 
be above everything else both friendly 
and obliging. Take your duties as a 
neighbour gladly, easily and good-naturedly, 
and do not try to avoid them. It has very 
recently become the custom, I know, in cer- 
tain parts of our country, to ignore and some- 
times laugh at these duties, to think that the 
safest and the pleasantest way to treat your 
neighbour is to let him alone, to hardly ac- 
knowledge that he exists. This is especially 
the fashion, so to speak, in a great many of our 

[i 4 6] 



A POPULAR NEIGHBOUR 

big cities and in those country districts where 
the summer homes of town-bred people are 
built. 

There are almost numberless rows of pleas- 
ant houses in New York, Chicago, Boston, 
etc., where families dwell side by side for 
years without courting the least interest in 
one another. They are ignorant of the names 
of those who live across the way, around the 
corner, or even next door, and I confess that I 
have visited in beautiful country homes where 
the inhabitants thereof were not in the least 
ashamed to admit that season after season 
they held no communication whatsoever with 
the occupants of the near-by farms and old 
manor houses, nor had they taken the pains 
even to establish a bowing acquaintance with 
the people of the village whose cottages clus- 
tered about the post-office. 

This perfect isolation from neighbours and 
this freedom from neighbourhood duties, it has 
been explained to me, gives everybody the 
greater liberty; and so it does, no doubt; but 

[147] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

it does not make for a greater amount of good 
feeling, and if you are so exclusive and so care- 
ful to preserve your perfect independence, you 
will never be 

A POPULAR NEIGHBOUR 

j^OR to be a popular neighbour it is quite 
necessary to be an amiable, approachable 
and dependable member of the locality in 
which you live. You cannot afford to be 
only self-interested; you must not deplore the 
expenditure of time and attention given to the 
task of placing yourself on the most agreeable 
footing with all those who live nearly about 
your home, and you should not make the mis- 
take of accepting one fellow-resident as a 
comrade and refusing even to notice another, 
because you consider that the former is your 
social equal and the latter is not just exactly 
one of the first families in the country-side. 

In setting out to make yourself a genuinely 
popular neighbour, let it be one of your most 
fixed and valued rules that you not only accept 

[i 4 8] 



A POPULAR NEIGHBOUR 

but very gladly invite the acquaintance of every 
resident in your vicinity, whether they are the 
children of Colonial Dames or the humblest 
of newly arrived emigrants from Europe. 

Among these, of course, you will select your 
intimates, and many of them will always re- 
main merely the most formal of acquaint- 
ances, but do not live in ignorance of the fact 
that so soon as a man or woman becomes your 
neighbour, whether he is a millionaire or a coal- 
heaver, he will like you very much better and 
very much sooner because you hail him first 
on meeting, and hail him, moreover, in a mark- 
edly friendly fashion. 

Let the fact that he is your neighbour give 
him a particular claim on your interest and 
civility, and do not be inclined to hang back 
overlong to discuss and weigh the necessity 
of making the first advances when negotiating 
neighbourly feeling between your own house- 
hold and that of the Blanks, which has re- 
cently, we will say, been established just 
across the road or actually next door to you. 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

Never take into profound consideration the 
fact that the Blanks are strangers and wholly 
unknown in your vicinity and to your 
friends; that they appear to be neither beau- 
tiful nor interesting, rich nor socially at- 
tractive. Do not wait to see how the other 
neighbours will receive them or what kind of 
an appearance they will make at church on 
Sunday, or whether they promise to introduce 
a pleasant or unpleasant element into the 
society in which you move. All these possi- 
bilities you must ignore and only remember 
that, as you are aspiring to win popularity, as 
a neighbour it is both your duty and your privi- 
lege to prove to the Blanks that you know how 
to give them 

A KINDLY WELCOME 

/^IVE it to your new neighbours promptly, 
and, if it is the custom in your community 
to welcome new arrivals by a formal call, do 
not allow weeks to pass before you succeed in 
filling this first and most important mission 

[150] 



A POPULAR NEIGHBOUR 

There is no compliment implied by the first 
visit that is unduly delayed, and sometimes 
there is a precious opportunity missed in wait- 
ing overlong to extend the neighbourly hand of 
greeting, unless, of course, you have the best of 
explanations to offer for a tardy appearance. 

Should you be, however, perfectly justified 
in your conviction that the Blanks, who have 
rented the cottage down the street, are very 
occupied in putting their new home to rights, 
and should you be inclined to believe that 
your sudden appearance at their gate would 
greatly embarrass their proceedings, you can 
very safely follow the graceful and always ap- 
preciated course of making your first welcome 
by proxy and after this fashion: 

Send a verbal or written message by a ser- 
vant to the effect that you beg to present your 
compliments and that you will later give your- 
self the pleasure of calling, and add that, in 
the meantime, you hope, if your new neigh- 
bours are in want of aid or information, they 
will not hesitate to call upon you for any sug- 

[151] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

gestions or assistance that lie within your 
power to afford. 

Sometimes, with even more delicacy, and 
with tact, and also with a view to displaying a 
warm and ready good-nature, you can ven- 
ture to stop at the stranger's gate or door and 
deliver the above-mentioned message to a 
servant or to a member of the newly arrived 
family. Begin, then, always by making the 
most kindly of overtures, not only because it 
is the first step that counts in your favour, but 
because there is nothing that so pleasantly 
and so hopefully impresses those who are try- 
ing to establish themselves in a new and a 
strange home as the generous friendliness of 
the reception they receive. 

By these simple devices and small efforts you 
can successfully prove that you are inclined to 
be 

A FRIENDLY NEIGHBOUR 

^^ND I must here make it clear that at no 
time is the friendly neighbour more pop- 
ular or more appreciated than when a near-by 

[152] 



A POPULAR NEIGHBOUR 

resident is ill or otherwise in trouble. Then 
it is important to show the true generosity of 
your nature by the skill and thoughtfulness 
with which you promptly offer assistance. 
For no matter whether you are on the calling 
list of your neighbour or not, whether you like 
him or not, or whether you regard him as a 
justly afflicted person or the reverse, do not 
be restrained from giving him both your help 
and your sympathy in his hour of need. 

Do not make your attempt to aid or com- 
fort in any but the heartiest and most practi- 
cal fashion, and do not hold back because you 
have a fear that you may be intruding, or that 
your attentions may not be needed. There 
are very well-intentioned people who are 
scrupulously careful to call formally at the 
door of a near resident and say: "Is there 
anything I can do?" or, "if you need help 
please remember that I am quite at your ser- 
vice/' or they will send a servant with a polite 
message and conclude that thus their whole 
duty has been accomplished. And so it has 

[153] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

been, after a fashion. But of such a mere 
civility afflicted persons are not apt to take 
any advantage, whereas they will probably 
feel genuinely grateful and really helped if you 
begin by showing them at once some small 
but appreciable attention. My advice is, 
then, not to begin by asking if there is any- 
thing you can do, but by actually doing some- 
thing to show your good-will and your desire 
to be of service. 

When there is illness in the family of your 
nearest neighbours, for example, make your 
first pilgrimage to their door bearing some- 
thing in your hand that might be of use. I 
have seen this course advantageously pur- 
sued by one who was a popular neighbour 
because he knew how to meet an emergency 
with real assistance as well as sympathy. 
When he went to make inquiries he was so 
thoughtful as to suggest some little favour that 
he could do, and then he went on an errand, 
or brought a dish of broth, or loaned some 
convenience, with a heartiness that taught the 

[154] 



A POPULAR NEIGHBOUR 

neighbours to look upon him as a strong arm of 
true aid in times of trouble. 

It was not in this way alone that he proved 
himself a friendly neighbour, for he had set it 
down as a good rule that while all your friends 
cannot be your neighbours, all your neighbours 
should be your friends in some degree, and 
that to keep them as friends it is necessary 
to show them many 

SMALL ATTENTIONS 

^'HESE are of divers sorts, and neighbours 
never lack in appreciation of your gene- 
rosity in now and then sharing with them the 
kindly fruits of the earth, a gift of flowers, a 
good book, or the loan of your magazines. It is 
so easy and so profitable when your garden is 
overflowing with fruit or vegetables, to pick a 
basketful of particularly fine plums, pears or 
peaches, and, arranging them most attractively, 
send them, with a note or card, to the Blanks, 
whose garden you know is none of the best, or 
whose strawberry crop has been a dead failure. 

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Again, if you have been presented with 
a barrel of particularly fine apples, or a 
splendid box of roses, and you feel gene- 
rously inclined, it is perfectly permissible 
to send a share of these across the apart- 
ment-house hall, or up one flight to the 
family that you may not know even by name, 
but which you have a right to pleasantly 
approach because they are your fellow-occu- 
pants of the house. 

Thus the very fact of living near to people 
gives you certain pleasant privileges, but be- 
lieve me that it never gives you any right to in- 
trude upon their privacies, and one of the 
most important and delicate attentions you 
can show your neighbour is to restrain yourself 
from ever taking a liberty with him. A little 
carelessness on this point so often leads to 
trouble that I cannot forbear to suggest that, 
in order to live in harmony with your neigh- 
bour, and to keep his lasting liking, you should 
never allow yourself to become careless in 
your intimacy with him. 

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A POPULAR NEIGHBOUR 

Familiarity, as the old saw says, does 
not so often breed contempt as it breeds 
neglectf ulness ; and when you grow so fa- 
miliar with your neighbour that you neglect 
some of the little formalities of life, differ- 
ences and ill-feeling are very apt to be the 
outcome. 

Experience has proved to me that it is, for 
example, the better plan never to grow so 
familiar with the family next door that you 
venture to drop in upon them at all hours and 
to stay as long as ever your leisure permits. 
Go frequently and in the most informal 
fashion to the Blanks, if you find them sweet, 
cordial and congenial people, but do not 
always make your entrance like a member 
of the family by the rear gate or the back 
door. 

The neighbour who has this habit, and 
who persists in it, is apt, in time, to render 
his presence a nuisance and a burden ; 
and when you are not absolutely sure that 
the Blanks are at home, or just what they 

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are doing, or whether they expect your 
coming, go to the front door and ask to be 
admitted. 

By so doing you need not show yourself to 
be stiff and ceremonious, but very thoughtful 
indeed, for no matter how long and how well 
you may have known the Blanks, and how 
dear and intimate they may be, there are 
times when, by walking in upon them unex- 
pectedly and without knocking, your pres- 
ence creates both confusion and annoyance. 
There are, indeed, occasions when even the 
most delightful neighbour is unwelcome in the 
sense that his appearance is an intrusion on a 
private family conference or the scene of a 
perfectly natural and inevitable family disa- 
greement; but you need never be an unwel- 
come caller if you take the above mentioned 
precautions. They will save your neighbours, 
as well as yourself, from embarrassment, and 
do not let yourself grow so carelessly familiar 
with your neighbour, or so neglectful of his 
feelings, as to attempt almost unconsciously 

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A POPULAR NEIGHBOUR 

to make a convenience of him and his be- 
longings. 

BORROWING AND LENDING 

T'S an interchange of courtesies and kind- 
nesses, but it is dangerous to the lifelong 
serenity of neighbourly friendship to borrow 
too much and to treat the borrowed article 
with any but the most respectful care. I do 
not hesitate to maintain that the neighbour 
who is very well liked borrows rarely from 
his near-by friends. But when he does so 
he returns the article that has been loaned in 
exactly the state in which he received it, and 
as promptly as possible. If you have re- 
quested the use of a book or a wheelbarrow, 
a spade or a tea-cup, and then proved so care- 
less that the lender is forced to send and ask 
for its return, you should consider it your 
duty to go in person and offer an apology for 
your negligence and forgetfulness, or send a 
note to explain why the article was not re- 
turned sooner. 

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On the other hand, if you are asked to lend, 
do so amiably, though you may never borrow 
anything yourself, for it is only nice and neigh- 
bourly to appreciate another's need and prove 
obliging. When the borrower does not re- 
turn your possession and you need it, be sure 
to demand its return in the most courteous 
terms that you can command. You may be 
both annoyed and inconvenienced by the non- 
appearance of the article that has been bor- 
rowed, but it is nevertheless a serious mistake 
to let your irritation display itself in the way 
you request the restoration of any belonging, 
however precious. 

No matter what your need may be, never 
use any utensil of your neighbour without first 
asking his permission to do so. 

If you wish to take a party of friends 
through a neighbour's grounds, pay him 
the pretty compliment of requesting the 
privilege of so doing, and do not violate his 
garden or ask his coachman for the loan 
of a trap without first assuring yourself 
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A POPULAR NEIGHBOUR 

that the owner of whatever you desire to 
use has granted you the right to benefit by 
his generosity. 

With considerable care I am making these 
points, because nothing is more fruitful of 
quarrels between neighbours than the old, old 
old story that one resident presumed upon an- 
other and thus a misunderstanding arose. In 
my experience, however, misunderstandings 
never do arise when you treat your neighbours 
exactly as you would like them to treat you, 
and that is to say with 

DELIGHTFUL FRANKNESS 

7T your friend next door desires the loan of 
your very best China tea-cups which, in 
no circumstance, you would lend, or she 
appears with the purpose of making a call 
at the very moment when you are seriously 
occupied, or feel it your duty to set forth 
on your shopping or marketing, then tell her 
the truth, sweetly and frankly. Do not let 
your pride, or your diffidence, or your 
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natural desire to oblige prevent you from 
saying truthfully that you stand ready to 
offer her any convenience that lies in your 
power, but that the tea-cups are far too 
precious to be given into any other hands 
than your own ; that you are sorry that you 
are not at leisure to stop and enjoy her 
call, for the reason that some one is waiting 
for you or that a sewing-woman claims all 
your attention. 

Even the most sensitive neighbour can be 
made to understand and accept a situation 
that is honestly and kindly explained, and she 
will like you far better for taking her thus 
quite into your confidence and dealing with 
her fairly and squarely, than she will if you 
oblige her with the tea-cups reluctantly, if 
you sit through her call with a restless, distrait 
and troubled expression, and finally permit 
her to make her adieus in offended igno- 
rance of the reason for your cold or inattentive 
manner. 

Honesty in neighbourly association is always 

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A POPULAR NEIGHBOUR 

the best policy, I know by repeated and per- 
sonal test, and I also know that 

AN ENVIABLE REPUTATION 

/J S a neighbour is won by taking very par- 
ticular care that your habits, possessions 
or amusements cause the least possible dis- 
comfort or annoyance to those who live about 
you. When your home is in a village, coun- 
try colony, or a crowded apartment house, 
see that your household pets, your children, 
and your servants create no disturbance that 
can distress or incommode your fellow resi- 
dents. 

When you dwell in an apartment-house and 
you wish to entertain with music or dancing, 
try to regulate your festivity with due regard 
to the rest and convenience of the other occu- 
pants of the house. If you must needs prac- 
tice your voice, your violin, or your piano, and 
there is an invalid on the floor above or below 
you, ask to see the sick neighbour or his rela- 
tives, explain the requirements of your art, 

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and arrange, if possible, to practice at the 
hours that will not interfere with the afflicted 
person's sleep. 

There is more than civility in this; it is a 
tribute to unselfishness and to others that is 
not apt to go unappreciated, and it shows that 
you have a true realization of the rights of the 
men and women with whom your lot is cast. 
Furthermore, when you are thus considerate 
yourself you have every right to ask consider- 
ation of others. This among neighbours is a 
delicate point' often at issue, and one that is 
very frequently fruitful of serious disputes. 

The man who would be popular in his own 
locality is, again and again, at a loss to know 
whether he should suffer the depredations of 
the Blanks' dogs and children in silence or 
that some restraint be used to keep them in 
order. When his apple trees are robbed by 
the mischievous boys from over the way, or 
the big black-and-white setter belonging to the 
family next door bays the moon o' nights, to 
the destruction of everyone's rest, or the ice- 

[i6 4 ] 



A POPULAR NEIGHBOUR 

box of the family in the overhead apartment 
leaks somehow through the parlor ceiling, the 
serious question arises as to what should be 
done. Should a complaint be registered 
when the offending family of Blanks are total 
strangers, or when the head of the house is 
known to be a highly sensitive person ? 

Thus, in puzzling guise, a common enough 
problem appears to trouble one who is both 
cautious and kindly. In response to it, I very 
unhesitatingly reply that the best way, indeed, 
the only way, is to tell the Blanks just wherein 
they are neglecting their neighbourly duty. 
There are, however, ways and ways of laying 
a complaint before a neighbour, and but one 
way is the right way. 

Whether you know the family next door or 
not, go to the head thereof in person, and state 
your grievance, but state it in terms so amia- 
ble and so free from a demand for justice, that 
no indignation can possibly be aroused at 
your request. 

Never call upon your neighbour with a com- 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

plaint until your grievance is very real, and al- 
ways take it first for granted that he is not 
aware that any wrong has been done. Strong- 
ly, too, do I advise against the very improper 
and uncivil policy of sending messages by 
children and servants, of complaining loudly to 
your offending neighbour's neighbours in the 
hope that your grievance will, in some round- 
about way, come to his ear. Instead I warmly 
recommend a call made in a friendly fash- 
ion, to explain the difficulty as though the 
whole affair was an accident, and quite as 
though you desired sympathy and assistance 
rather than stern justice for your cause. 

An excellent plan to follow is that of mak- 
ing no complaint while still justifiably angry 
over a trespass or an injury received. Wait 
until you can discuss the matter frankly and 
quietly, and do not adopt a third and most 
unfortunate course of enduring some injury 
in silence, and in taking your revenge for the 
same in suddenly, but positively, ceasing all 
friendly intercourse with your neighbour. 
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A POPULAR NEIGHBOUR 

This is a kind of injustice, because you can 
never be sure that he is aware of your reasons 
f©r your loss of confidence; and to treat a 
neighbour with secret injustice, to judge him 
before he can make an explanation or rep- 
aration, is to prove that you are not a 
candid nor a fair-minded person, and that 
you are without a true claim to the joys of 
popularity. 



[i6 7 ] 



CHAPTER SEVEN 



WELCOME GUESTS 

The shortest and most direct road to popularity is to be 
the same that you wish to be taken for. Socrates. 

/CANNOT come amiss, I think, to dis- 
cuss at length and with a very helpful 
object in view some of the qualities that 
go to make the delightful visitor. 

By the delightful visitor I wish to signify 
just as much the caller of the afternoon, and 
the acquaintance bidden in to dinner or lunch- 
eon as that person who is asked to stay two 
days or two weeks in a friend's house. I 
mean the visitor whose coming is hailed with 
joy, whose presence gives unstinted pleasure, 
whose departure causes genuine regret, and 
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WELCOME GUESTS 

whose invitations are neither few nor far 
between. Truly the charms of such a mem- 
ber of society are great, they are also 
most enviable, but they are rare, though 
they are really not difficult to explain or 
imitate. 

Firstly then, therefore, I would fain point 
out, to any one who peruses this chapter 
in the hope of gaining both enlightenment 
and assistance, who dearly loves to be 
entertained and who is perfectly conscious 
of not playing the part of guest very grace- 
fully or successfully, that the best way to 
secure invitations, that are often and warmly 
repeated, is to begin by realizing that it is 
necessary always to take your entertainers' 
claims upon you very seriously and to try 
to make as careful return for the hospi- 
tality you receive at the house of a friend 
as though you were meeting your bill at a 
hotel. 

The price of course that you are expected 
to pay for friendly entertainment is not laid 

[i6 9 ] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

down in dollars and cents. Instead, and 
quite properly, it is given in the form of 

HIGH AND COURTEOUS CONSIDERATION 

< *T B, HIS consideration is to be displayed in 
many ways. When you are visiting, no 
matter where or for how long, make your host- 
ess your best friend by showing her that your 
first desire while under her roof is to be as 
agreeable and as entertaining as you know 
how. From the moment you enter her house 
until you leave it give her every reason to be- 
lieve that you are satisfied with the amuse- 
ments and accommodations that she has pro- 
vided for you, and that you are as glad and 
as ready to think of her comfort and conven- 
ience as she is to think of yours. 

Let me suggest that you do not follow the 
example of the visitor we sometimes meet, 
who is particularly concerned about his own 
private likes and dislikes and who has thought 
only for his own satisfaction when sojourn- 
ing under a friendly roof. 

[ 170] 



WELCOME GUESTS 

I mean by such a visitor the person who is 
not exactly selfish, nor conscious of being ex- 
acting, of asking more than it is easy to sup- 
ply or of weighing heavily on his hostess's 
mind, but who is constantly asking little 
favours, who observes different hours of rising 
and retiring from those followed by the host- 
ess's household, who requires a great deal of 
attention from servants, who is never quite on 
time for meals, never dressed when the trap 
comes to the door for the afternoon drive, nor 
outspokenly pleased with what is done or pre- 
pared in behalf of his entertainment. 

Such a visitor cannot be rightly called sel- 
fish, but he certainly is thoughtlessly incon- 
siderate, and that is what those who aspire to 
success in this part cannot afford to be. 
When you are a guest keep your wits about 
you and your eyes always open to see what 
you can do or leave undone in order to make 
yourself so agreeable that your hostess will 
find it a pleasure and not a task to entertain 
you. 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

When a question arises as to following two 
courses of action, think first of the hostess's 
convenience and then of your own. If you 
are asked to drive or sail or play a game, say 
that you will be delighted and say so in a tone 
that expresses the most cheerful consent. 
Remember that you are truly a welcome and 
charming guest only so long as your presence 
contributes to the comfort and the pleasure of 
others, and to make yourself ever welcome 
to host and hostess, observe on all occasions 
the most 

EXQUISITE PUNCTUALITY 

( 7"* , HIS special kind of politeness, which we 
hear is so sacredly observed by kings, 
must not be neglected when it is a question 
of an invitation or an answer. I have been 
a hostess and I know that I feel pleasantly tow- 
ard the new acquaintance who lets me know, 
by return post, whether or not I can expect her 
on the day and on the hour mentioned in my 
invitation. And on the other hand, I know 

[172] 



WELCOME GUESTS 

just how naturally resentful I feel toward the 
friend who waits a long, long time to answer 
my note, who is uncertain as to dates and who 
writes that she can come, and then at the last 
moment writes, or wires, or telephones me 
that she cannot. 

Now, above all things, when making a first 
visit, when visiting one with whom you have 
never stayed before and on whom you are 
anxious to make the very best impression, do 
not fail to keep your appointment to the day 
and the hour. Your punctuality will not pass 
unappreciated, it will count tremendously in 
your favour, and be sure that you are able to 
call your would-be entertainer your intimate 
and good-natured friend before you venture 
to break an engagement with her and arrive 
upon any other boat or train than that one on 
which she expects you to appear. 

This precaution you must needs observe, 
because you can never know beforehand just 
how trying or expensive to her any dilatori- 
ness on your part will prove, and right under 

[173] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

my own eyes occurred a somewhat typical 
incident of the awkwardness and inconven- 
ience that a careless young guest occasioned 
her hostess. The hostess in this case was not 
a rich one. She lived in a comfortable farm- 
house home in the country, and she asked the 
pretty young friend of her eighteen-year-old 
daughter to visit her for a fortnight. 

The pretty young friend accepted the in- 
vitation with alacrity and wrote that she could 
be expected on the 4.15 train on a chosen 
afternoon. To the 4.15 train the one tired 
farm horse, dragging the heavy old family 
carriage, was sent, and no guest appeared. 
But from a train that rolled into the station 
two hours and a half later a dainty figure of 
smiling expectation of good times stepped 
lightly. There was an excuse offered for the 
delay, but not a very good one, I thought, and 
a grim little line drew for a moment round 
the mouth of the hostess, whose dinner was 
delayed, whose horse and man were weary 
after repeated trips to the station, and whose 

[174] 



WELCOME GUESTS 

confidence in and first friendly enthusiasm 
for her new guest were rudely shaken by this 
very thoughtless disregard for her household 
convenience and her comfort. 

Not one whit less punctual do I always find 
the charming guest to be in leaving than in ar- 
riving, and I can never falter in my belief that 
one way to destroy the agreeable impression 
made upon your entertainers in the course of a 
visit is to overstay the time set for your depart- 
ure. Only very seldom is it quite safe to take 
your hostess at her word and accept her ex- 
pressed regret at your going as a sign that she 
means that she wishes you would remain yet a 
little while longer. 

Sequels, I think, are as rarely successful in 
hospitalities as in literature, and my advice is 
to repeat a pleasant visit after an interval 
rather than prolong it from day to day and 
thus wear out what in the beginning was a 
sincerely hearty welcome. Go always when 
your time is up, unless you are very sure that 
by tarrying a while longer you will really add 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 



to everyone's pleasure, and never let the final 
date for your departure remain unsettled. If 
on Tuesday you are asked to postpone your 
going, say promptly and positively, "Then I 
shall be delighted to stay until Friday." 
For on some points it is well to be formal and 
even punctilious with old friends, and so sadly 
often is a hostess put out and seriously dis- 
commoded by the visitor whose date of de- 
parture is uncertain, and whose continued 
presence makes it impossible for her to ask in 
other friends. 

Next after the observance of the politest 
kind of punctuality I rank 

THE FACULTY FOR ADAPTABILITY 

A S the quality that goes farthest in the good 
work of winning hostesses' hearts. The 
best way to show yourself a very adaptable 
person and to please your entertainer is to 
treat her hospitably, whether it takes the 
form of modest tea drinking, or a big and 
splendidly luxurious dinner party, as though 

[176] 



WELCOME GUESTS 

you considered it of prime importance and 
worthy of your own best social endeavours. 
Bring into her drawing-room with you a 
cheerful and a festive air. I am a great 
believer in the influence of good spirits, 
and I hold that it is most unfair to a hostess 
to attend her luncheon or her picnic, as 
the case may be, unless you can dress your 
face in smiles as well as your body in good 
clothes. 

You may not be a brilliant person, gifted 
with wonderful wit and an infectiously buoy- 
ant manner, but you must, nevertheless, un- 
derstand that it is perfectly possible for you to 
wear a pleased and friendly expression and 
that in society it is an injustice to yourself not 
to try and add what you can to the gaiety and 
-cheer about you. 
To be a guest esteemed and desired you 
must make your effort, small as it may be, to 
look satisfied and happy in whatever com- 
pany you are placed. Do not go to enter- 
tainments and wear a bored, indifferent ex- 

[177] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

pression, or wait, with a somewhat melan- 
choly patience, for someone who will make 
the effort to amuse you. Make that effort 
yourself first and you will have no rea- 
son ever afterwards to regret the exertion. 
Talk your best, smile your best, and above all 
things learn how to look as though your fellow- 
guests were amusing and satisfactory. Guard 
carefully against the mistake of looking dis- 
satisfied, vague and inattentive to the com- 
pany in which you find yourself. 

Quite the most adaptable, and, therefore, 
the most agreeable guest I ever knew, was a 
young, pretty and wealthy woman, who visited 
with me in a cottage that was more pictur- 
esque than convenient, and where one maid- 
servant, more obliging than competent, was 
the single servitor of the hostess, who had 
courageously and kindly asked us to spend a 
whole week under her small but very hospit- 
able roof. 

The rich young friend of my friend was a 
gay girl and well accustomed to luxuries, per- 

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WELCOME GUESTS 

feet servants and the most delicate of dishes, 
but she gave, nevertheless, the promptest 
answer to my friend's invitation, and when 
we drove up to the station to meet her 
she was waiting smiling on the platform, 
with one wee trunk and a hand bag as all her 
luggage. 

In a half hour after her arrival she had 
established her belongings in the tiny guest 
chamber, and hardly a habit of the house- 
hold but she had learned and quickly adopt- 
ed it. She was among the first down to the 
rather early breakfast, she was as ready for 
bed and as pleased with her mid-day dinner 
as though she had lived all her life on a farm, 
and in the evening she made her toilet by 
candle light as serenely as if gas and elec- 
tricity had never been heard of. 

But that which lent the greatest charm to 
her company, and that which was most pleas- 
ing and comforting to her hostess, was the ex- 
cellent good spirit with which she entered into 
any occupation or amusement that was sug- 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

gested. She sat on the wide veranda and 
sewed, she played games with the children, 
she took long walks, had tea with the unpre- 
tentious neighbours without the least sign of 
boredom or fatigue, and, when the time came 
for her departure, her hostess and family felt 
as though a dear and treasured member of the 
household was about to leave. 

Their regret at her going was not hard to 
appreciate, because she had in a seemingly 
unobtrusive way done almost as much to 
make them enjoy her sojourn as they had 
done to make her happy, and she had proved 
admirably easy to entertain because she had 
so willingly and quickly and sweetly adapted 
herself to the surroundings just as she found 
them. Often and often do I know that she 
has been invited again to the little farmhouse 
as she is invited elsewhere for the reason that 
she is both cheerful and reasonable. She 
does not like to have the obligation for enter- 
tainment all on one side; to tell the truth, like 
a very honest individual, she pays as she goes 

[180] 



WELCOME GUESTS 

and she has the cleverness to know that at 
dinners, balls, tea parties and country homes 
hostesses are happy to have cheerful folk about 
them. 

This cheerfulness means much and yet 
there are other 

CARDINAL RULES 

^T^HAT the would-be guest can follow with 
no less profit and pleasure to himself and 
benefit to his entertainers than those I have 
set down above. One of these has to do with 
the many little precautions that you may 
well take, when under a friend's roof, 
never to weigh too heavily on her time 
and mind. 

Learn how to entertain yourself a little. 
There are some guests who are moody and 
unhappy if left one moment without amuse- 
ment or companionship of some sort. Every 
hour of the day and every moment of every 
hour must be carefully planned and filled for 
them with diversion, or time hangs very, very 
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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

heavy on their hands, and they become greatly 
disgusted and wearied with their unhappy 
situation. 

To understand the true art of making your- 
self an agreeable guest is to take care that you 
do not fall a victim to this unfortunate habit, 
and is also very thoughtfully to give your host- 
ess a little breathing spell every day when you 
are within her gates. She has, you must re- 
member, many household duties to perform. 
There are her children, her servants and her 
husband to be considered, and you must not, 
therefore, put in a first claim on quite all of 
her time and attention. 

Once or twice a day, then, make it a habit to 
while the hours away by yourself or with an- 
other guest, or with a member of the family 
who is quite at leisure to help you find diver- 
sion. If you are a masculine guest take your 
cigar and your newspaper, and after break- 
fast voluntarily settle yourself in a corner of 
the breezy veranda or in the library and smoke 
as you read or write. 

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WELCOME GUESTS 

A woman can always steal away to her 
room for a nap after lunch or go for a walk 
with the children or retire with her novel and 
her rocking chair into a shady spot on the 
piazza, and if you can do this good naturedly 
and naturally, if you can thus display a little 
of the spirit of independence and content- 
ment with your own company, you succeed 
in just about doubling the comfort and true 
consolation that your hostess finds in your 
presence. 

She is no less appreciative of that thought 
for her convenience than she is unaware of 
the very particular care you show in your 
treatment of all her belongings and the order 
in which you keep your own. She is sure to 
almost unconsciously like you a trifle better 
if, when you select a book from a shelf, a 
chair from a room, or a hat from a rack, you 
very thoughtfully replace it in the exact spot 
in which you found it. 

A hostess may have one servant or a dozen, 
but that should not influence you in your care 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

of your room and in your efforts never to 
leave lying about on chairs and tables your 
fancy work, your wraps, your novel or your 
tennis racket. So long as you are visiting 
keep all your possessions together and in one 
place and see that they are in nobody's way, 
for I think we all know and have suffered 
from the guest who takes liberties, who slips 
into the best chair in the room, unconscious 
of the fact that the grandmother of the 
family is standing, who leaves an umbrella 
in the doorway for someone to stumble 
upon, and who coolly ignores or frankly 
shows a dislike for another guest who is 
sharing the hospitalities of the same roof at 
the same time. 

Only when you are an otherwise peculiarly 
charming or wonderfully brilliant person can 
you afford to venture on those liberties, and 
I can nearly always prophesy a clear and a 
brightly prosperous social future for the guest 
who is amiably willing to think first and 
openly of others. 

[i8 4 ] 



WELCOME GUESTS 

This is the guest who is quite ready oc- 
casionally to make what I call 

LITTLE SOCIAL SACRIFICES 

< T*'HEY nearly always pay, and oppor- 
tunities are constantly presenting them- 
selves where you can put aside your own con- 
venience and pleasure for a moment in order 
to help out on a trying occasion or hide a prej- 
udice, and when you can win golden opinions 
and great gratitude from your hostess by so 
doing. These chances for unselfish deeds 
come to you when, during a call or a luncheon 
party, your hostess places you beside some- 
body who is tiresome or really difficult to talk 
to Then you should not conclude that it is 
no business of yours to try to draw out a shy 
companion, or listen patiently to a dull one. 
Instead, do not hesitate to show your hostess 
what a pleasantly helpful and good-natured 
guest you are by striving to get on well with 
your uninteresting neighbours, and make the 
best of them. In so doing you win two 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

friends, the comrade of the moment and the 
hostess herself. If she is at all a quick, keen 
woman with an eye to the main chance, she 
will see that you are a very genuine help in en- 
tertaining and unselfish in your endeavours, 
that you are good-tempered, patient and 
kindly, and her gratitude and her invitations 
will go out to you almost involuntarily. 

As a very admirable example of the real 
heroism that guests can and do sometimes 
display, to the great saving of their hostess's 
feelings, I cannot forbear telling of the action 
of a man and woman who met at a dinner 
party and in the parlor of a common friend. 
Both the man and woman bore different 
names; both of them were new acquaint- 
ances of the hostess, who was ignorant of the 
fact that once upon a time the two had been 
man and wife and then had been legally sepa- 
rated. 

As luck would have it she paired them off 
for the dinner table, and without a sign of dis- 
comfort at her arrangement they quietly ac- 
[186] 



WELCOME GUESTS 

cepted the introduction she made, the woman 
put her hand upon the arm of the man, and 
at table they sat side by side and smiled and 
talked cheerfully through the entire meal. 
It was not until months afterwards that the 
hostess learned how much self-control they 
both had exerted in order to save her feelings. 

And a similar self-control I often think it 
is both wise and kind to show when eating 
the food that is set before you in a house 
where you are entertained. Accept the dishes 
that are offered you when you visit as though 
you ate their contents with relish. The most 
disheartening guest is that one who is the vic- 
tim of many peculiar preferences in food, who 
cannot touch meat, or eat anything cooked 
with eggs, or abhors the taste of cheese; who 
is hard to satisfy, who is very finikin and ec- 
centric about diets, and nothing so hurts the 
deepest feelings of a hostess as the sight of her 
dainties wholly ignored. It shows, then, the 
fine metal of which you are made when you 
try to eat what is set before you as though 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

you liked it, and here let me suggest that you 
can curry just a tiny bit of extra favour with 
your hostess by showing yourself to be per- 
fectly polite and deferential to every member 
of her family and willingly sweet and encour- 
aging with her children. 

Should you visit awhile in a family where 
there are elderly relatives and little folk don't 
allow yourself to appear bored and distracted 
by their presence. Make the necessary social 
sacrifice of paying a very exquisite deference 
to your hostess's old mother or her elderly 
aunt or invalid sister. There is more than a 
single avenue to the heart of a hospitable 
lady, and one straight way to attainment of 
her favour is gained by the visitor who can 
boast a few 

DRAWING-ROOM ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

yfND who knows how to make the most 
and the best of them, no matter what they 
may be. Just this identical advice I felt it 
quite my duty to give to a very ambitious 
[188] 



WELCOME GUESTS 

young lady, who wanted to discover the best 
way to add to her social charms and also to 
her circle of friends and hostesses. She, like 
many another justly aspiring person, longed 
heartily to learn the art of being an agreeable 
and a wished-for guest, and when I had told 
her wherein her opportunities lay I made 
haste to assure her that nothing would be 
lost and much might be gained in the matter 
of improvement if she would and could offer 
the special attraction of providing simple di- 
versions. 

For I am one of those who believe very 
sincerely in the interest and the amusement 
of what is sometimes called "mere parlour 
tricks." The scorn, however, spent upon 
them is greatly misapplied, and the man or 
the woman who has the pretty and graceful 
capacity of " doing something well," possesses 
an enhanced value not only in the sight of 
every hostess, but every guest also. 

If blessed good fortune has given you a 
voice or really talented piano hands, then by 

[i8 9 ] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

all means use these endowments gracefully 
and willingly to please others, and when you 
dine out or visit a friend you can win your 
hostess's special good-will by sweetly display- 
ing your art to the greatest advantage. By 
doing so you help her to amuse her guests 
at the same time that you earn for yourself 
their admiration, and you also show a very 
lovely kind of unselfishness in readily con- 
tributing to the pleasure of others. 

But if the voice or the piano hands are lack- 
ing, then discover for yourself if there is not 
some other and less difficult means by which 
you can recommend yourself to all hostesses 
as a very desirable and amusing guest indeed 
to ask to their homes and to share their hos- 
pitalities. Teach yourself how to read aloud 
with expression, or to recite gay, tender and 
sweet bits of verse and dialogue by the popu- 
lar modern authors and poets. Conquer the 
slight difficulties of the mandolin or the ban- 
jo, or merely perfect yourself in the art of 
doing many clever things with cards, from 
[190] 



WELCOME GUESTS 

telling fortunes to taking a capable hand at 
bridge. 

It really is not very important to set down 
here just what you had best choose to do, but 
it is essential for me to advise that it is the 
thing done very well and in the best spirit of 
amiability and perfect willingness that will 
count most in your favour. After years of ob- 
servation and experience I have come to the 
conclusion that it is the desire to be very 
kindly and to add something to the content- 
ment of others, and to the hostess especially, 
that goes so far and works so well in the 
making of the attractive and always popular 
guest. 



£191] 



CHAPTER EIGHT 



THE SUCCESSFUL HOSTESS 

Sow good services; sweet remembrances will flow from 
them. Mad. de Stael. 



HEN you purpose to entertain your 
friends think first how you can 
make them happy, and spare no 
reasonable amount of effort in order to make 
them comfortable. These should be your 
guiding inspirations and your highest objects, 
whether you gather a few pleasant persons 
under your roof for a quiet little dinner, or ask 
a couple of agreeable acquaintances to stop 
in your country cottage from Friday till 
Monday. Ungrudgingly make every exertion 
that will contribute to their contentment, offer 
them the very best of yourself and of what 
you have in the way of creature comforts, 

[ 192] 




THE SUCCESSFUL HOSTESS 

and do not shrink from entertaining because 
you have not abundant means, beautiful glass 
and china, accomplished servants and a big 
luxurious house at your disposal. 

It is fine, noble and necessary, I assure you, 
to dispense hospitality of one sort or another; 
and, if you are not prepared to entertain lav- 
ishly, then entertain simply. Do it as well as 
possible, put geniality and unselfish careful- 
ness into the undertaking of offering even 
a cup of tea or a bit of toast, and your friends 
will appreciate you the better for your ex- 
ertions and your desire to have them break 
bread under your own vine and fig tree. 

One of the most charming little affairs I 
ever attended in my life was of the very sim- 
plest description and given in a small house 
with modest pretentions to beauty and ele- 
gance. The ten-year-old daughter of the 
family, dressed in a crisp, blue gingham gown, 
opened the door for her mother's friends, and 
showed us where to lay off our wraps and 
ushered us into the tiny drawing-room. Her 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

rosy, gallant little brother passed plates of 
cake and sandwiches, and the cups of tea 
which his mother brewed, while she received 
and talked and laughed and tried in every 
way and very successfully indeed to put us 
at our ease by giving us the benefit, not only 
of very carefully prepared accommodations, 
but also of the most gay, gracious and com- 
panionable side of her disposition, and by 
showing us that for all the trouble she had 
taken in our behalf she found full compensa- 
tion in having us in her home. 

She looked not only very gratified to see us, 
but honoured that we had come, and were I to 
be given the training of anyone who wished 
to learn how to entertain well, I would spare no 
pains to teach her that one-half of the success 
to be made when a hostess lies in knowing 

THE RIGHT WAY TO RECEIVE GUESTS 

U T^HERE is a right way and a beautiful way 
of doing this, and it is the first step in en- 
tertaining that counts. Nothing else so 

[ 194] 



THE SUCCESSFUL HOSTESS 

pleases and so flatters a guest into a high good- 
humor as feeling, hearing and believing that 
his hostess is honestly glad to see him. I al- 
ways have heartily admired that woman who, 
at once ambitious, keen-witted, very ungrace- 
ful and very determined to make of herself an 
accomplished hostess, used to rehearse alone 
and before a mirror the best and most grace- 
ful way of going forward to receive a caller. 

By and by practice and persistence made 
her perfect in her part, and I can vouch for the 
fact that the welcome to be found at her draw- 
ing-room door was one of the seemingly small 
but highly important and self-acquired ac- 
complishments that helped her to establish 
herself as a leader in the society of her city. 

Consequently, oh reader! I advise you, 
whether you have a long purse or a short one, 
a fine house or a cottage, to learn in the be- 
ginning and to learn well to greet your guest 
as though his coming really added to your 
highest happiness. Never receive your caller 
gravely and with stiff formality or with a 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

negligent air. Smile at him a little, go for- 
ward from where you sit or stand and say, 
with just a trifle of emphasis, "I am so glad 
to see you," or "I am so glad you have 
come," or "Oh, Mrs. B., what a pleasure to 
see you! " 

These are old and stereotyped phrases, in- 
deed, and when recited carelessly, or with 
studied formality, they sound empty and 
insincere and cold, but if you speak them 
in a cordial tone, if you try to look as pleased 
as you say you are, and if you hold the 
visitor's hand just one instant with a firm 
pressure, such time-worn sentences take on a 
new and lovely meaning to which every one 
is just as keenly and agreeably sensitive as to 
the accent of real regret you put into your 
voice when the moment arrives for taking 
farewell of one who offers his adieus. 

Perhaps I may seem to be making much of 
a detail, yet I do so for the reason that many 
nice, intelligent women there are who fall short 
of rendering their homes highly popular be- 

[i 9 6] 



THE SUCCESSFUL HOSTESS 

cause they are not aware that it is the little 
smiles and sweet words and tiny courtesies 
offered at just the right time that influence 
guests, and that the way to a visitors heart is 
not so often through his stomach, as most 
people think. 

Of course it is most important to provide the 
creature comforts, and concerning those I 
shall speak later, but at the moment I wish to 
say that it is not what you offer your guest, but 
the way you offer him what you have that in- 
clines him to wish to test your hospitality 
again and again. I wish, furthermore, to im- 
press it upon anyone who looks into this chap- 
ter, with the hope of finding helpful advice, 
that there is a gracious and an ungracious 
method of offering hospitality, and that I have 
seen many hostesses who had an ungracious 
way without knowing it. 

Indeed, there is no more familiar and no 
more unhappy figure than the dear, kind soul 
who makes the most elaborate and generous 
preparations for an entertainment, who gives 

[197] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

her very best, who longs to have her friends 
enjoy themselves, who wears her freshest 
gown for the event, and who entertains strictly 
and carefully by the best rules of etiquette, 
but who fails dismally because she does not 
know that the 

CHEERFUL SERENITY 

^[JRESERVED by the hostess is one of the 
most necessary ingredients in the make- 
up of a social occasion. To give your hospi- 
tality graciously you must give it with a de- 
cidedly festive spirit. A hostess is like a com- 
mander of fighting forces, on whose courage, 
dash and coolness victory depends, and to be 
a victorious entertainer you must not let your 
moods, worries, disappointments, headache, 
or irritation show before your guests. 

When I hear some one say, after a social 
event, that the hostess did not seem quite her 
usual pleasant self, then I can very safely con- 
clude that the little dinner dragged, that the 
evening was dull, and the party broke up 

[198] 



THE SUCCESSFUL HOSTESS 

early because nothing so dismays and dis- 
comforts a guest, nothing so spoils all pleas- 
ure as to see that the head of affairs looks 
anxious, that she is hissing, frowning and 
beckoning softly at the servant to call her at- 
tention to mistakes, that she is distracted from 
conversation, that she answers some member 
of the family sharply, or that she is constantly 
apologizing and explaining. 

While acting in the capacity of hostess take 
thought in order that your manner will be the 
very embodiment of placid good temper, and 
allow no accidents, mistakes or shortcomings 
in your very careful arrangements to bring a 
worried look into your eyes and a frown to 
your brows. Don't let your company see that 
in the baking of cake, dusting of rooms, airing 
of beds or arranging of flowers for their bene- 
fit, you have worn yourself into a state of 
languid fatigue or nervous irritation. 

It is better not to air beds and bake cake, if 
by so doing you incapacitate yourself for 
bringing into your parlor a clear head, a light 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

heart and a ready laugh, for your guests will 
like your gay good humour and simple refresh- 
ments twice as well as the most dainty dishes 
served up by a cross, tired, harassed hostess. 

From the moment the first guest arrives it 
is gracious and necessary to appear at leisure, 
and not only quite ready but delighted to de- 
vote all your attention to promoting conversa- 
tion and diversion. Exercise all possible 
self-control and do not look preoccupied and 
anxious. At any sacrifice of your feelings do 
not let your company be unpleasantly aware 
that while your body is in the drawing-room, 
your thoughts are really in the kitchen. 

Perhaps all your best-laid plans have gone 
awry, the roast appeared only at the ninth 
hour, and your important guest has failed you. 
With the most careful and cautious of house- 
keepers all these accidents will happen, but if 
they do transpire, never appear to be sad- 
dened or distracted by the consequences when 
you are in the presence of your dinner com- 
pany. 

[ 200 ] 



THE SUCCESSFUL HOSTESS 

Don't let your eyes wander constantly tow- 
ard the pantry door, and don't neglect to 
smile at the good joke your right-hand neigh- 
bour is telling because the mint sauce for the 
roast lamb has not appeared or because the 
third course seems terribly behind-hand. 

If you continue to look quite satisfied with 
or unconscious of a mistake in the serving, the 
guests, like good soldiers, will not only take 
their cue from you, but they will far sooner 
forget and forgive than if you insist upon let- 
ting the accident dampen your spirit, and if 
you make profuse excuses for the momentary 
inconvenience. 

Only when a guest is very particularly in- 
commoded, or is the special victim of your 
servant's blunder should you take any notice 
at all of a hitch in the proceedings. 

If your waitress lets water or soup drip on 
a coat sleeve or dress-train, turns over a 
glass, or fails to offer a dish, it is essential for 
you to say heartily how sorry you are and to 
rectify or remedy the blunder as best you can. 
[201] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

But after that pass on at once to more interest- 
ing matters. 

Do not, in the anguish of your mortifica- 
tion, annoy the company by explaining why 
there is no savoury with the fish, don't beg 
them to overlook the dryness of the cake, don't 
be the first to note the fact that there is an 
odour of frying in the air and complain be- 
cause there is a dash of salt in the ice cream. 

I have been one of a charmingly appointed 
and richly provided luncheon party, whereat 
the hostess, by tactlessly and fretfully men- 
tioning that the sauce for the fish was missing, 
succeeded in turning all our pleasure in the 
meal to actual disgust. She apologized, ex- 
plained and complained; we were asked to wait 
while an investigation was made for the sauce 
in the kitchen; she looked angry and disap- 
pointed and mortified, and to tell you the very 
truth we would never have known that there 
was a sauce or that it was lacking had she 
not made it a matter of such moment that we 
all felt embarrassed and not a little annoyed. 
[ 202 ] 



THE SUCCESSFUL HOSTESS 

Now, while I am on this topic I wish to 
further recommend the importance and 
beauty of preserving a cheerful serenity of 
manner when you invite only a single and inti- 
mate friend in to eat a family meal with you, 
or to stop over night. Resist an inclination 
to begin by asking the person who shares your 
hot lunch or cold home tea to forgive your 
plain fare, to excuse this, overlook that, and 
not mind the thick slices of bread and butter 
or the toughness of the steak. 

Give instead what you have as if the pleasure 
of your friend's company made all the food ten- 
der, rich and sweet, and be yourself so pleas- 
ant, so gay, so oblivious of the simple fare 
that your friend will not mind its plainness. 

Every hostess should know how to exercise 
self-control and how to 

THINK FIRST OF THE GUEST 

ND then of herself. Consult your friend's 
peculiar tastes, habits and feelings if you 
wish to make him happy in your house, and 

[203] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

be as eager to give him all the comforts that it 
lies within your power to supply as a hotel 
proprietor is to make his visitors satisfied. 

There is always a successful social career 
open to you as a hostess if you will think well 
in advance of the dozen and one little atten- 
tions that will help to make your visitor very 
contented. One of these attentions you can 
show when writing your note of invitation. 
Take then the kindly precaution to drop a hint 
that will enable your friend to pretty accu- 
rately guess at the kind and the amount of 
clothing it will be necessary to bring along for 
a two days' or two weeks' stay in your house. 

You can do this so easily by frankly saying 
that you purpose to entertain a good deal or 
that you live in a quiet neighborhood where 
little entertaining is done. If you think that 
it is not kind and not necessary to do this, then 
listen, pray, to the story of a sweet girl who 
was asked to spend a week in the house of a 
friend whom she had never visited before. 

Anticipating a very gay time, she brought 
[204] 



THE SUCCESSFUL HOSTESS 

all her loveliest gowns, only to find that her 
hostess lived on a big farm, where early to 
bed and early to rise was the rule, where 
heavy shoes, short skirts, and rough-and-ready 
hats were necessary. At the end of her week 
the poor child went home in a most unhappy 
frame of mind; for every day and all day she 
had been so over-dressed that she felt her ap- 
pearance was out of keeping, that her pretty 
clothes had been sadly injured and that all 
her sport had been spoiled. 

This was an unnecessary sacrifice, for a 
thoughtful hostess would have helped her to 
avoid the mistake; and as you strive to be a 
thoughtful hostess make your guest satisfied 
by giving him the particular comforts that he 
desires. 

You are not intelligently thoughtful if you 
believe that all guests are alike and that what 
suits one suits another. Entertaining would 
be a very monotonous business if that were 
the case, and when you ask Mrs. Blank to 
make herself at home, exercise your will and 
[205] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

your wits to see that she is allowed to enjoy 
some of her home habits. 

If Mrs. Blank is accustomed to taking her 
breakfast in bed, if she likes to sleep late and 
to read after she has retired, you can make her 
very much at home by generously and care- 
fully fulfilling all these little needs. 

There was a time when I visited in a house 
where the really sweet and well-meaning head 
thereof entertained a newly made friend who 
was a delicate woman, accustomed to breakfast- 
ing in her own room. For two days my fellow 
guest managed to get down to the eight o'clock 
family meal; then her hostess discovered that 
she was not accustomed to so early an hour and 
offered to send up a tray. She was as good as 
her word, but she gave no oversight to the 
tray, which went up laden with boiled tea, 
weak milk, and thick, tough slices of cold toast. 

It was a dreary, untempting meal, and the 
semi-invalid guest has never again, to the sur- 
prise of that hostess, accepted another invita- 
tion to spend even the night at her country 
[206] 



THE SUCCESSFUL HOSTESS 

place. This incident of the tea and toast I 
have related only because it goes to show that 
a little thought and a little unselfish care, or 
the lack thereof, serves to make or mar your 
popularity as a hostess among your friends. 

Safely I can lay down the rule that nothing 
is really too much trouble if you think that 
thereby you contributed to your guest's happi- 
ness, and if you can cleverly anticipate his 
small wants. Be ready to set a match to the 
sitting-room fire on a chilly day, without wait- 
ing to ask if your shawl-clad visitor is cold; 
send up a tiny tray with a glass of cold lemon- 
ade and a few biscuits when your friend has 
arrived after a long, hot journey; lay the latest 
magazines near the reading-lamp by the bed- 
side and not the stale issues of a periodical; 
and between two guests show only 

THE STRICTEST IMPARTIALITY 

J^N distributing your attentions. When two 
friends are being entertained under your 
roof, give them an exactly equal share of your 
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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

time and your smiles, and if you have two 
guest chambers, furnish them as nearly as 
possible exactly alike. The best and second- 
best bedrooms are mightily productive of hard 
feeling, or bitterness and misunderstandings. 

You can never safely presume to put one 
friend into the pretty pink-and-white cham- 
ber with the private bath and the charming 
outlook, and another into a rear room, 
which seems to be a sort of home for in- 
valid furniture and the native haunt of 
the children's rocking-horse and the family 
sewing machine. Your object in entertaining 
is always to promote good feeling, but even 
your dear and often-entertained friend will 
bitterly resent the second-best room, or the 
fact that you show a greater eagerness to 
please or convenience a fellow guest than you 
show her. 

Let your courtesies be given to all visitors 
alike, and when you have friends stopping 
with you don't try to over-entertain them. 
Be kind, be thoughtful, be ever alive to their 

[208] 



THE SUCCESSFUL HOSTESS 

pleasures and their needs, but when you ask 
a pleasant woman down to Breezecote-by-the- 
sea don't worry her with your company and 
civilities. It is so possible, in your anxiety to 
satisfy and amuse, to do this. Not a rara 
avis by any means is the dear and tactless 
hostess who bids us to her pretty home and 
then renders us very miserable there by keep- 
ing us ever under her eye and entertaining us 
from daylight until dark. 

She intends to be so kind and yet she only 
succeeds in worrying. Therefore, I advise 
young hostesses and old to let each guest have 
an hour or two every day of real sweet soli- 
tude. Don't feel, if Mrs. Blank steals away 
to her room after lunch, or Mr. Brown wan- 
ders off with a book to the hammock under 
the trees, that they are being left alone to fight 
off boredom. If you follow them up and tap 
at Mrs. Blank's door, or send your husband 
after Mr. Brown, you are really making the 
business of entertaining very wearisome and 
trying to both yourself and our guest. But, 
[209] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

on the other hand, do not go to the other ex- 
treme and think that the best way 

TO MAKE A GUEST FEEL AT HOME 

TS to allow him to wander about alone for 
hours at a time, looking timidly for amuse- 
ment and companionship, while you serenely 
attend to your daily tasks free of any sense of 
obligation on his account. This is not fair, 
nor is it polite to think it unnecessary or too 
much trouble to try and make the hours pass 
pleasantly and swiftly for your visitor. Suc- 
cess means exertion, and when you entertain, 
your efforts must be directed with some tact 
and forethought. When you invite a gay 
young girl to visit you, do the best you can to 
bring the gay young folk of your neighbour- 
hood about her; and find out whether Mrs. 
Blank is fond of driving or walking before 
you take her for a long jaunt over the hills and 
far away. 

There is sometimes so much selfishness un- 
consciously displayed by the hostess who in- 
[210] 



THE SUCCESSFUL HOSTESS 

sists upon making her guest sit all day sewing 
on the piazza when she is fairly pining for a 
brisk tramp along the lovely roads, a sail, or 
dip in the sea; and contrariwise in dragging an 
indolent piazza and hammock-loving woman 
away from her easy-chair and her embroidery, 
or the lazy man from his book and his cigar, 
to bear a share in tennis or golf, in drives, 
fishing parties, etc., which are not at all to 
their taste. 

None too solemnly and too carefully also 
can I warn my investigating reader against 
carelessly permitting a guest to see the too in- 
timate side of her family life. Even the old 
friend who comes to stay with you will not 
wish to hear and see overmuch of your do- 
mestic worries, of the family disputes or the 
little household skeletons. Just as you give 
your visitor the best room in the house, the 
daintiest fare from your larder, and the great- 
est possible amount of diversion, give him also 
the most cheerful, agreeable view of your 
home circle. 

[211] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

Wretched indeed is the guest who sits at a 
table where the hostess and her husband ar- 
gue a point with sharp speeches, where the 
mother constantly reprimands the servants 
and children, and sorry am I for the visitor 
who is obliged to hear family woes and sor- 
rows and nursery squabbles. These are 
among the little disagreeables from which a 
hostess must protect her friends just as she 
must take care never to let her children prove 
an annoyance to those who accept her hospi- 
tality. 

You may be quite correct in thinking your 
sturdy Teddy the cleverest boy in the world 
and your Dorothy the sweetest of little maid- 
ens, yet you have no right to force their com- 
pany and their small accomplishments and 
the tales of their precocious doings and say- 
ings on the gentleman who sits beside you at 
dinner, or on the woman who comes to stay a 
few days in your home. 

Nine visitors out of ten are quite satisfied 
if the appearances of the dear little folk of the 
[212] 



THE SUCCESSFUL HOSTESS 



nursery are like angels' visits, few and far be- 
tween, and you must be ready to cheerfully 
take their point of view and consider their 
preferences. It is only a thoughtless and in- 
considerate hostess who will permit Dorothy 
to run into Mrs. Blank's room when that lady 
is making her toilet, napping or reading; and 
who does not see and restrain Teddy, whose 
inclination is to familiarly climb all over Mr. 
Brown, gaily wear that gentleman's hat or ex- 
periment with his camera. And should you 
have the small sons and daughter to take their 
dinner, tea and lunch with the grown-ups 
when you entertain, then keep them so well 
in hand, so respectfully gentle in their mari- 
ner that their presence will contribute to the 
guests' pleasure and not, as is so sadly often 
the case, to their acute discomfort and an- 
noyance, or embarrassment. 



[213] 



CHAPTER NINE 



THE HAPPY TRAVELLER 

A good companion on the road is better than a coach. 

Syrus. 

HEN you go travelling, study time- 
tables, your comfort, wise econ- 
omies and something more. That 
is, if you wish to be voted not only a capable 
and intelligent traveller, but an ideal com- 
panion as well. 

For, whether you merely go up to town for 
the day or on a voyage around the world, you 
owe it to yourself, and you owe it to the stran- 
gers among whom you are thrown, to appear 
to be more than just a competent, energetic 
and self-reliant person. It is of the first 

[214] 




THE HAPPY TRAVELLER 

importance to give positive proof that you 
are above everything else an exception- 
ally polite, agreeable and forbearing man or 
woman. 

In setting out, then, from home, remember 
two things : First, that the unknown individ- 
uals who occupy car seats and steamer chairs 
near you are, in one sense, your travelling com- 
panions, deserving of all the time and good in- 
tentions you openly or silently devote to try- 
ing to win their approval, and that it is as 
necessary to strew your roadway with pleasant 
speeches and considerate actions as it is to 
make careful inquiries and to give timely tips 

One reason why a goodly number of seem- 
ingly intelligent and kind-hearted people fail 
to find travelling either profitable or amusing, 
is because they forget or do not know how to 
show the best side of themselves when they go 
on a journey. 

There are familiar to us all those friends 
and acquaintances who cannot go up to town 
for the day, nor to Europe for a summer's 

[215] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

outing, without bringing back wellnigh heart- 
rending tales of various woes endured. With 
leisure, wealth, and even faultless weather at 
their disposal, they contrive invariably to miss 
the good times that should have been theirs; 
and no outing they may undertake, whether 
long or short, ever turns out quite happily. 

Unkind conditions follow them everywhere 
by land and sea. Their trains are always be- 
hind-hand ; their fellow travellers are dull or 
inconsiderate; servants along the route are 
grossly impertinent; officials are rude or in- 
different; hotels are uncomfortable, and the 
food set before them unfit to be eaten. As 
you listen to the long list of their grievances 
you are apt to fancy that the victims of so 
many discomforts were sufferers from ill- 
luck, whereas such travellers are far more 
likely to be those who follow the very mis- 
guided course, when abroad, of standing a 
good deal of the time upon their rights, who 
are impatient and exacting, who have haughty 
or unconsciously brusque ways with officials 

[216] 



THE HAPPY TRAVELLER 

and employees, and have no fortunate knowl- 
edge of the truth that 

AN AMIABLE COMPLAISANCE 

TS like golden currency in all lands and in 
all circumstances, and that one touch of 
good-nature makes the whole world kind. 

For to be either a successful commuter or a 
globe trotter, you must not only look for good 
luck, but make it for yourself as you go along, 
by learning how to accept little trials and real 
discomforts with perfect courage and self-con- 
trol. To show that you are both a pleasant 
person and a well-bred one do not waste in- 
terest and energy that could be far better ex- 
pended in other ways, by complaining. A 
fretful traveller is a bore, the victim of a habit, 
and a most tiresome habit. He loses time 
and strength and the liking of others by 
"making a fuss" over little things; over the 
coffee at the hotel, over the lateness of a train, 
over the fact that a cab-driver charged a bit 
more than his proper fee, and over the wind 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

that blew a little too cool, or the sun that 
seemed to shine a degree or two too fiercely. 

When you are given to so annoying a habit 
you will find it always easy to worry about 
something not only that has happened, but 
that may be just about to happen, and you 
thus destroy all your capacity to see or enjoy 
the pleasant or the beautiful things under or 
before your eyes, and you also succeed in kill- 
ing all the joy of those about you. 

It is worth while, then, to painstakingly cul- 
tivate the very much more commendable and 
as easily acquired habit of setting out on any 
journey with a bland cheerfulness of aspect. 
When you are travelling realize that you are 
nearly all the time in the presence, more or 
less, of strangers, and that a sad or sorry, a 
supercilious or apprehensive countenance is 
not an interesting or an inspiring object to 
your fellow-passengers. 

Let your pride dictate to you on this point, 
and let it persuade you that the moody, or 
sulky, or disgusted expression of features you 

[2X8] 



THE HAPPY TRAVELLER 

wear when you appear in a railway carriage 
or a steamship saloon is as repulsive to friends 
and strangers alike as an untidy toilet would 
be. You will seem attractive or the reverse 
as the light in your eyes and the lines about 
your mouth indicate. 

Remember this to your own future profit and 
pleasure, and remember also to restrain an in- 
clination, if you have it, to constantly talk over 
and harp upon the small and large disasters 
that have fallen to your share in a day's journey. 

If you do this you will give everyone a right 
to believe that you set more store by the 
lumps of sugar in your tea than by the beauty 
of the scenery or the charm of the weather, 
and that you are particularly hard to please. 
Consequently you will never be chosen as a 
comrade for a journey, for 

A GOOD TRAVELLING COMPANION 

one who can forget all about the coffee 
stains in the hotel table-cloth, and the 
toughness of the steak in the delight of a fine 
[219] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

drive, the wonders of an ivy-clad ruin or 
the splendid sight of a great waterfall. 
A good travelling companion, moreover, 
is one who does not come home to relate 
long, harrowing accounts of what he has 
suffered, but of the enjoyable side of his 
experiences, and he always makes the most 
of the pleasures and the least of the pains of 
the journey. 

By doing this you are able to create the 
impression that you are a true optimist, and 
nothing will so gain for you the admiration 
and the respect alike of strangers and friends 
as the sensible compose with which you en- 
dure inconveniences, delays and occasional 
real hardships. 

You must, of course, suffer from misadven- 
tures, but display both good-breeding and 
good sense by meeting them in the best pos- 
sible spirit. When the most cherished plans 
go all awry and your hopes and your patience 
are sorely disappointed and tried, don't for- 
get how to smile, how to speak mildly, and 
[220] 



THE HAPPY TRAVELLER 

how to use persuasion instead of indignation, 
to overcome an irritating difficulty. 

As a clever, a dignified, a practical and a 
delightful travelling companion, do not, when 
the train is overdue, the baggage missing and 
hotel accommodations very bad indeed, lose 
your nervous energy, your self-command, and 
all your true influence by falling at once into a 
state of lively indignation, and setting out an- 
grily to discover your rights and demand 
them. 

In place of attempting to hold fate and 
officials responsible, composedly and good 
naturedly try first to find the shortest and the 
easiest way out of the trouble, and then enlist 
the help and sympathy of others in furthering 
your sensible aim. If you are a really capable 
traveller you will never abuse and accuse, but 
ask questions in a tone free from rancour. 
You will always receive your most effective 
assistance in an emergency by asking for aid 
in words that carry an appeal and not an 
order. 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

It was by just this very reasonable measure 
that I saw one passenger fail and another suc- 
ceed in getting baggage aboard a train at a 
junction where the traffic was heavy, where 
the baggage-master was hot, tired and exas- 
perated, and the trains running very sadly out 
of schedule time. In the crowd on that plat- 
form beside which the next express would halt 
one moment stood two women. Both were 
eager to have their trunks put aboard as soon 
as the train arrived, though to everyone the 
baggage-master had abruptly stated that it 
would be impossible to do so as the express 
never stopped long enough for trunks. 

Of the two anxious, worried women, one 
lost her temper wholly at this distressing in- 
formation. She immediately and sharply in- 
sisted on having her things put aboard, and 
finally, in high dudgeon, hurried away to the 
ticket office to find some one who could and 
would help her to enforce her commands. 

The other one then stepped up to make her 
request as the irate baggage-master shook his 

[ 222 ] 



THE HAPPY TRAVELLER 

head and started to turn rudely away. Well 
aware of what her demand would be, he 
seemed determined to avoid another noisy ar- 
gument, but to his surprise, apparently, she 
spoke softly and smiled a little. 

"I know you are awfully busy and hot and 
worried," she said, " and I wouldn't bother at 
all about that trunk if it didn't hold my dress 
for a wedding, where I am going to be a 
bridesmaid this very afternoon. Don't you 
think you could possibly help me to get it 
on board that train ? I'd be so very much 
obliged to you if - — " 

The wearied official stopped short, listened, 
and then interrupted : 

"That's all right, miss," was what he said, 
in a sudden change of tone. "We will see 
what can be done for you. The little black 
trunk over there did you say ?" 

The train roared into the station just then 
and somehow the door of the baggage car flew 
open and at least one little trunk went into 
the great van. Then the rough, red-faced 

[223] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 



baggage-master lifted his cap with all the air 
of a Chesterfield to a triumphant little lady 
who expressed her thanks and boarded the 
train, full of satisfaction over the successful 
use of the few soft words that had turned away 
so much wrath and enabled her to go on her 
way victorious and rejoicing. 

It was all done in a moment, but it all went 
to prove that those who know how to be cheer- 
ful and conciliatory are always the men and 
women who travel more swiftly and more 
easily than those who stop to wrangle angrily 
over details and who do not know how to 



MAKE THE BEST OF BAD LUCK 

u 7^0 understand the art of taking a really 
trying situation well is to show that you 
are of the philosophical stuff of which good 
travellers are made. A fair weather com- 
panion it is easy to be, but when the touring 
automobile breaks down several miles from 
the nearest town, the opportunity is then 
open for you to give a taste of your quality 
[224] 



THE HAPPY TRAVELLER 

by rising nobly to the occasion, and by show- 
ing not the least tip of a white feather of fear 
of inconveniences. 

Carry about with you everywhere a little of 
the savoury salt of humour for special use in all 
such emergencies, and whatever the disagree- 
ableness or even the dangers of the occasion 
may be, preserve your equanimity and don't 
give expression, by words or look, to blank 
despair. 

I know of no more disheartening comrade 
on a long trip or a short one, than that man or 
woman who is selfishly overcome by a stroke 
of bad luck, and who refuses to do anything 
but gloom and grumble over the hardship of 
having to walk back to town, or wait long 
hours for a wreck to be cleared from the rail- 
way track. 

The sensible and the delightful person, 
when accidents occur, does not announce the 
fact that he wishes he had never left home at 
all, that he hates travelling anyway, that he 
longs to find himself once more safe under his 
[225] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

own roof, and that the situation is abominable, 
deplorable, and a little more than human flesh 
and blood should be called upon to endure. 
He does not fall into a sulky silence of dis- 
gust and disappointment, and look patheti- 
cally injured or woefully annoyed. 

Whatever his own fears and discomforts 
may be he says very little about them. He 
knows that a bad case is never made any bet- 
ter by taking a melancholy or a morbid view 
of it, while it can sometimes be greatly im- 
proved, or mitigated, or even temporarily for- 
gotten by turning both thought and energy to 
the generous hearted task of diverting his own 
and his fellow-travellers' attention to other and 
more cheerful interests. 

In case you are the victim of an accident 
of anything less than a tragical nature, show 
both your tact and your intelligence by talk- 
ing neither too long nor too pessimistically of 
the mishap, by walking back through the 
rain and the darkness with a cheerful gossip of 
many things, by audibly and persistently in- 
[226] 



THE HAPPY TRAVELLER 

sisting that the situation will soon be im- 
proved, and by stoutly maintaining the faith 
that the condition might have been worse, 
and that there is something to laugh at after 
all. 

How infectious and inspiring this practi- 
cal philosophy of making the best of a bad 
bargain can prove I am able to vouch for by 
reason of an experience of my own. It might 
have been a very unhappy experience indeed, 
had not our party, that steamed one sum- 
mer's evening up the New England coast on 
a big white boat, boasted one member who 
was, in truth, an ideal travelling companion. 
He was a good-natured young fellow from one 
of the big Western cities, enjoying his first 
holiday from business and his first experience 
on the water, and, when the boat struck a 
rock in shallow water and filled so badly that 
all the passengers, for safety's sake, were sent 
ashore in the darkness to wait for morning 
light on the situation, he persistently regarded 
the whole experience as a sort of a mild joke. 
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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

Huddled on the sand, damp and miserable, 
the few easily rescued passengers of the 
steamer sat all night around the cheerful 
young Westerner who had taken a very limp, 
very alarmed and very exasperated stout 
matron under his wing. 

She railed and wailed at the fate that had 
overtaken us; she insisted that we would all 
die of pneumonia; she spoke bitterly of the 
loss of her trunks, and she hard-heartedly, 
and we thought unjustly, laid the blame for 
all her troubles on her husband, who had per- 
suaded her to join our expedition, and who 
lurked guiltily, silent and wretched, some- 
where on the outskirts of our group. 

Gradually the tragical views of this lady of 
many woes were gaining a great influence 
over the rest of the shipwrecked party, when 
the young man from the West quietly, and as 
gallantly as the Roman hero, slipped into the 
breach. 

First, he found some matches in his pocket 
and then made a fire. He put the sorrowful 

[228] 



THE HAPPY TRAVELLER 

matron near the cheerful blaze; he told up- 
lifting tales he had heard of luggage rescued 
in perfect condition from vessels partly 
wrecked upon wilder waters than those of 
Maine; he boldly denied that seafaring folk 
ever caught cold from contact with salt water, 
and then he began to ask conundrums, tell 
stories of the sea serpents, and finally to sing 
all manner of ditties, sweet and silly, but none 
of them sad. 

He waved a twig as a baton and com- 
manded choruses, which we gave repeatedly, 
and before the morning light broke and rescue 
came, we were as jolly and as noisy as a party 
of pirates celebrating the capture of a rich 
merchantman, and as dry as the sand on which 
we sat. We broke up our meeting round the 
dying fire at dawn with laughter and no tears, 
because one unselfish young man had showed 
us how much glamour a little good-nature and 
good-will can shed over the most disconcert- 
ing trials and the, sometimes, unavoidable 
tribulations of travel. 

[229] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

"A merry heart," writes Will Shakespeare, 
"goes all the way, your sad tires in a mile." 
Which is true enough, as I have tried to set 
forth, and as I have always found to be a very 
fact in my own journeys and adventures. 
That which, however, contributes very nearly 
as much as the merry heart to your reputa- 
tion for giving really charming companion- 
ship on a journey, is the amiable readiness 
with which you offer to your fellow-travellers 
countless little 

SILENT CIVILITIES 

^•T^HERE lie, for instance, within your 
grasp many opportunities for showing, 
so soon as you enter a public conveyance, the 
most involuntary and grateful thoughtfulness 
for those about you. First, by asking no 
privileges you would not gladly yourself ac- 
cord, and then by considering the comforts 
and the feelings of others before taking any 
liberties whatever. 

If you wish to impress the travelling public 

[230] 



THE HAPPY TRAVELLER 

with the idea that you are a very well-bred 
and very experienced traveller, you will not fill 
the seat beside you in the train with your 
various belongings when the cars are going 
out from a crowded station and places in 
them are apt to be hard to secure. You will 
not throw your coat over the back of the seat 
in front of your own when others wish to oc- 
cupy it, nor let your bags form snares and pit- 
falls for the unwary along the narrow aisle. 

Look about first, when you wish to open 
the window beside your seat, and see whether 
the lifting of the sash is going to send a cold 
draught down the back of some elderly, sensi- 
tive-looking person near-by, or if there is a 
possibility of admitting heavy, ill-smelling 
soft-coal smoke, and unselfishly repress an 
inclination for fresh air if half a dozen stran- 
gers must be made to suffer for your gratifi- 
cation. 

When you are bent on reading aloud to 
your friend on the steamer deck or a hotel 
veranda, don't ignore the fact that perhaps by 

[231] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

so doing you will probably disturb four or 
five fellow-passengers who are quietly perus- 
ing their books and papers in your neighbour- 
hood, and think enough of the comfort of 
others not to come into your hotel room at 
night with a reckless banging of doors, noisy 
lifting of window sashes, gay gossiping in the 
corridors, and whistling on the stairs. 

If you are travelling in a party or with a 
friend make any sacrifice rather than fail in 
punctuality. The most trying, troublesome 
comrade on the road is the one who dawdles 
and takes chances on catching trains, who is 
frequently late at a rendezvous, and who is 
cold, critical, and severely exacting with offi- 
cials, with servants and with strangers. 

COURTEOUS CONDESCENSION 

TS a language every traveller should under- 
stand, and which you should express as 
much by your looks as by your words. There 
is no mistake so great as that of assuming, 
when you are away from home, an aspect of 

[232] 



THE HAPPY TRAVELLER 

proud reserve and exclusiveness. This atti- 
tude is not a bit necessary in order to ward off 
dreaded familiarities, for it is easy to look 
about you with kindly eyes that do not invite 
others to attempt to take advantage of your 
good-nature. 

But, above all things, be ready to give in- 
formation when it is asked of you, and to offer 
it when it seems needed as though you felt 
glad to be of use and not in too much of a 
hurry to lend a hand to any one in difficulties. 

I can speak with feeling and fulness on this 
point because there are travellers I have 
known who have missed so much through 
actual fear of being kind. They have 
knocked about this big, good-natured old 
world in a sort of dread of being imposed 
upon or misunderstood. 

This is a fear and this is a mistake which, 
if any of my readers are subject to it, they 
should try to overcome. It makes your way 
very hard if you go along giving tips with a 
grudging fashion and returning a brief an- 

[233] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

swer with a cold glance to the stranger who 
asks you the shortest route to the next town, 
the hour at which the next boat leaves, or vol- 
unteers a word of friendly comment on the 
scenery, or information concerning some his- 
torical spot. 

If you wish to understand the fine art of the 
happy traveller you will be very ready always 
to say "please" and "thank you" to every- 
body, and especially to those who are em- 
ployees in trains and steamers. 

Always give a tip with a pleasant word and 
an expression of one who gladly makes some 
return for services rendered, and accept any 
advances toward acquaintance or slight ver- 
bal intercourse with a stranger and fellow- 
passenger without looking affrighted, in- 
different or affronted. Shyness, or lack of 
interest, or reserve in a traveller is so often 
misinterpreted as snobbishness or actual ill- 
temper, that it is best always to think twice 
before rebuffing a stranger who wishes only to 
be polite and not intrusive. 

[234] 



THE HAPPY TRAVELLER 

This was a point that I could never, un- 
fortunately, make quite clear to a clever and 
kindly woman friend of my own, who missed 
many of the little bits of good luck that fall 
to the share of the sweet-tempered and 
gracious traveller because she had a distress- 
ingly short way with her unintroduced com- 
panions of the road. 

When she stood in the big art gallery at the 
World's Fair at St. Louis, and expressed to 
me the desire to know the English title of 
a wonderful French painting before which we 
stood, a very plainly dressed man near-by 
turned, smiled, lifted his hat, and gave a trans- 
lation of the foreign words. 

"Ah, thank you," coldly answered the 
lady, and quickly moved on. Her tone of 
voice was disagreeable, and though she really 
had not intended to snub our polite informant, 
she certainly had done so, for he volunteered 
no more information and turned on his heel. 
Later my friend was not a little surprised and 
mortified to learn that he was a noted Ameri- 

[ 235 ] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

can artist, that he could and would very prob- 
ably have given her much precious informa- 
tion concerning the pictures and their painters 
had she been but a little more gently gracious 
and sweetly grateful, and that the average 
traveller, after all, is not to be judged by the 
clothes, fine or faded, that he may wear. 

Throughout her journeys she boasted of 
her independence and was proud of it, but for 
all that she is not the pleasantest of travelling 
companions, because she carries with her little 
of the small change of gentle forbearance with 
the friendly fellow-passengers, and because 
she is guilty of the unfortunate habit of con- 
stantly indulging in 

COMPARISONS THAT ARE ODIOUS 

OHE is one of those capable, intelligent 
Americans who, when abroad, finds 
nothing so fine, so nice, or so comfortable as 
the scenery, the accommodations or the con- 
veniences to which she is accustomed at home. 
Her critical faculties are just a little bit too 

[236] " 



THE HAPPY TRAVELLER 

highly developed perhaps, and she is not quite 
sensitive to the fact that the inhabitants of a 
city or a country hardly like to hear disparag- 
ing remarks uttered concerning their native 
town or land. 

"I wonder why she came to California at 
all," I heard an angry Western lady justly and 
naturally say, as a traveller from the East 
spoke sharply of the food and the weather, 
the hotels and the manners she had met with 
on the sunset side of the Rockies. 

Sometimes I am inclined to wonder if these 
critical travellers know how unpleasant an 
impression they leave behind when they have 
visited a place and merely commented on its 
shortcomings. 

For this is a shortsighted and, I might say, 
a discourteous way indeed to travel, and there 
is never a more serious and frequent blunder 
ever committed by the average American in 
Europe than that of loudly and thoughtlessly 
saying in the presence of foreigners, "Why, 
this is not half so good (or so big) as the kind 

[237] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

we have at home; " or, "Won't I be glad to get 
home and eat some really decent food;" or, 
"I must say that the United States is a far 
better country to live in than this one." 

For, whatever your conclusions may be 
concerning the comparative merits of your 
country and another, do not, when the guest 
of a foreign nation, forget to consider the pride 
and the feelings of the strange people among 
whom you sojourn. 

There is so much kindliness and fine polite- 
ness displayed by the charming American 
who leaves home prepared to enjoy, and not 
to criticise. He may see many things of which 
he does not approve and suffer from incon- 
veniences that are unknown in his home land, 
but he is a travelling companion who is gra- 
ciously willing never to do or say anything that 
will sound cruel or carping. He eatswhat is set 
before him without reference to the superior 
food that is daily served at his own table, and 
he looks at the waters coming down at Lodore 
without instantly informing his foreign friends 

[238] 



THE HAPPY TRAVELLER 

that Niagara is much better worth journeying 
to see. 

Keen-eyed, he is quick also to accept the 
customs of the country in which he finds him- 
self, and respects them without protest or 
ridicule. He is prompt in noting that, in 
foreign shops, he is expected to say good 
morning to the clerk, that to speak to stran- 
gers at the table d'hote is permitted, and that 
the law or the religion make certain demands 
to which he is not subject on the western side 
of the Atlantic. But, whatever the majority 
approve, he makes for the time being his 
habit too, and in consequence he is sure to 
please and to charm wherever he goes, to find 
helping hands extended to him in a moment 
of any difficulty, and to be considered a de- 
lightful companion for a journey. 



[239] 



CHAPTER TEN 



A FAVOURITE IN THE HOME CIRCLE 

Our happiness in this world depends chiefly on the affec- 
tions we are able to inspire. Mad. de Praslin. 

/T is really very important to know how 
to be popular at home. 

I take it for granted, of course, that 
when you entertain guests under your own 
roof you are naturally eager to appear at 
your best, because you wish to make an agree- 
able impression. Then, no doubt, your home 
manner is all that the most exacting could 
safely imitate and admire. 

That, however, is not just the side of this 
big subject of popularity that I have here 
set out to discuss. When I say that it is very 
[ 240 ] 



A FAVOURITE IN THE HOME CIRCLE 

important to be popular at home, I do not 
mean to refer to your duties as a host or host- 
ess, but I do wish to dwell most urgently and 
persuasively upon the necessity of your show- 
ing your pleasantest side to your family, for it 
should be your aim and your endeavour to win 
for yourself something more than their re- 
spect and their affection that spring from the 
existence of the ties of blood. 

Aspire a great deal higher than this, and 
show, by your conduct, that you do not cher- 
ish the not uncommon, but very deplorable, 
idea that popularity is something to be sought 
for and profited by only among strangers. 

Popularity, like charity, begins really at 
home. 

And pray believe me when I say that it is 
quite as possible and quite as delightful to be 
admired and to be considered charming by the 
home circle as by the outside world. Fur- 
thermore, the habit of always showing your- 
self to be sweetly courteous at the dinner 
table and the fireside helps you in the most 

[241] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

amazing way to win the liking of friends and 
neighbours, and it helps you also to secure the 
most lasting happiness that you can possess. 

Perhaps you have never thought about this 
at all. You are, very likely, a perfectly duti- 
ful member of your household; you are not 
selfish, ill-tempered, without a tender con- 
science, warm sympathies and deep affections, 
but at home you do not consider it obligatory 
to keep your nicest qualities on parade. You 
allow the family to take them for granted and 
the arrival of guests to call them forth. 

In other words, you are the probably un- 
conscious and always awkward victim of 

COMPANY MANNERS 

^"HAT is to say, when strangers are pres- 
ent you do your best to appear gracious 
and at ease, courtly and considerate; but 
really you don't appear to be so, because you 
are not accustomed to the little ceremonies 
and small self-sacrifices and quick thoughtful- 
ness for others that make for agreeability. 
[242] 



A FAVOURITE IN THE HOME CIRCLE 

Such a manner I can see through in an in- 
stant, simply because it is never natural and 
genuine. There is something hard, uneasy 
and constrained about it that, plainly enough, 
tells, the tale that the guest or the host before 
me is not one of those rare and sensible 
individuals who exerts himself to be just 
as attractive to his home folks as he knows 
how. 

When the proper occasion arises he not 
only desires to be, but tries to be, kind and 
courteous and charming, to please and to in- 
gratiate, but all that he says and does, with 
the most amiable intention, goes only to show 
how sadly he is out of practice. His very 
best efforts are not crowned with success and 
he appears almost as unhappy and uncertain 
as a rough working man who is dressed up in 
all his best Sunday clothes. 

To be honest, then, in advising I must say 
not alone a word against company manners, 
that are so palpably insincere and uncon- 
vincing, but a great deal in favour of the family 

[243] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

manner that is at all times just as fine as you 
know how to make it. 

I have, moreover, and at this very point, 
a message to give those good people who ex- 
cuse themselves for a lack of knowledge of 
and facility with the courtesies that charm 
because they were brought up in isolated 
neighbourhoods or in dull districts where there 
existed no society to deserve that name, and 
to offer them fair opportunities for practicing 
the graces. 

Indeed, it does not require a gay society for 
you or for me or for anyone to practice and 
perfect ourselves in all the lovely little arts 
that make for popularity; that is, so long as 
we have our families. The best school for 
manners is always one's home. It makes 
little or no difference whether your home is a 
great or humble house, whether it is set in 
the fashionable residence district of a large 
city, or in the backwoods. Wherever it is, 
you can perfectly easily and most advan- 
tageously pursue there your own course of 

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A FAVOURITE IN THE HOME CIRCLE 

study of the deeds and words that win love 
and liking ; and if you are persuaded that 
this is so, and yet if you are a trifle uncertain 
as to just what it is that you can do and say 
to make yourself a highly popular member 
of your household, I can and will readily as- 
sure you that a little 

AIR OF GAIETY 

one if not the most attractive quality 
that a house companion can display. A 
languid, melancholy mood creates a depres- 
sing atmosphere. If you are subject to low 
spirits, make haste to realize that they must 
be controlled or thrown off entirely. Very 
much more frequently than you know they 
are just a lazy indulgence, and worse still, 
they are always decidedly injurious to the 
reputation you are trying to build up as an in- 
fluential and lovable person. 

Simply because you are not within eye-shot 
of strangers, because something has happened 
to annoy or distress you, and only the family 

[245] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

is to be assembled at dinner, don't assume 
that you have the right to bring down to the 
table a long and woeful countenance on 
which it would seem that a smile would never 
again appear. 

Your aim, we will take just now for granted, 
is to impress the household agreeably. To 
do this establish with yourself a rule against 
entering the dining room with anything less 
than a light step and an expression of open 
good humor. Come in to breakfast not only 
with a shining morning face but a shining 
morning manner, and give your greetings all 
around with a look and in a tone that flatter- 
ingly imply that you are very pleased to see 
your relatives again and that you are ready 
to take a most prompt and affectionate inter- 
est in them. 

Yours, you may complain, is a trying, 
busy, easily irritated and very informal fam- 
ily; that the members have a way of drop- 
ping into breakfast with just nods; some of 
the children come down with the aspect of 

[246] 



A FAVOURITE IN THE HOME CIRCLE 

having got out of bed very much on the 
wrong side, and that, therefore, the field for 
instituting reforms is not promising. 

As a mater of fact it is an ideal field where 
you can create a favourable impression and 
break the sullen tension of tempers by your 
amiable "good morning" and by gently in- 
sisting on trying to be the pleasantest possible 
company 

OVER THE COFFEE AND ROLLS 

OHOW what an agreeable companion you 
are by taking the food set before you 
without critical comments and by refraining 
to fall into arguments with even your most 
provoking and combative relative. 

If an exasperating individual states that 
black is white let the matter pass without con- 
tradiction or comment from you, for acri- 
monious discussion is quite out of place at 
table and is never worth while. An admir- 
able appetite will be often quite destroyed by 
a wordy contest, and when you know by ex- 

[247] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

perience that you are not an equable antago- 
nist in a family debate, don't offer your opin- 
ions or combat the inexact assertions of an 
imperious brother or a quick-tempered sister. 

Again, lay down for yourself the good law 
against talking of your food when you are eat- 
ing, unless you can say something pleasant 
about it. There is nothing I can think of so 
distressingly unkind as the unkindness of a 
family member who pushes back his plate 
with disgust, and says, "That pudding is sim- 
ply unedible ; " or, "What is the matter with 
the coffee this morning ?" or, "Why, in 
Heaven's name, cannot Mary make some 
decent rolls ? I really can't eat these things/' 

Perhaps the truth has been stated, but not 
in either a polite or politic fashion. If you 
cannot drink the coffee or eat the rolls leave 
them alone, and when the meal is over ask the 
head of domestic affairs, or the cook, or the 
waitress, to make a change in the quality of 
both. An open expression of disgust is not 
only vulgar, but it is very likely to annoy others 

[248] 



A FAVOURITE IN THE HOME CIRCLE 

who are at table and who are not so particular 
as yourself, or who are interested in their 
letters or their talk. 

Besides, I know of no better way to easily 
anger or wound the feelings of a housekeeper 
than by denouncing the food at the table, and 
no better way, also, to embarrass a neighbour 
or familiar visitor who may be present. Your 
complaints, if you have any to make, lose not 
a bit of their point and impressiveness be- 
cause you make them in private. 

The table, furthermore, I can assure you, 
is not, as many careless persons think, the 
proper place at which to tell a disheartening 
bit of news, to inform the family that you suf- 
fered from bad dreams, or a headache, or a 
wakeful night, and to emphatically correct 
the servant and the children. 

Keep all such information for another 
time, when the bad coffee can be discussed, 
the sad news revealed, and rebukes adminis- 
tered much more effectively than in the pres- 
ence of the assembled household. 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

To be a family favourite you must thought- 
fully consider that good digestion does not 
wait on appetite, and health on both when 
family finances, quarrels, difficulties and dis- 
appointments are served up with the soup, 
and stirred in with coffee, and that the 
straightest road to favouritism among your 
relatives lies in promoting at meal times the 
topics of conversation that enliven and do not 
depress. 

But above everything else 

PROMOTE CONVERSATION 

yALK when you are plying your knife 
and fork; when, in the winter evenings, 
you sit about the library lamp; and when, on 
summer nights, you seek the dark veranda; 
because talk, that is temperate in its tone, 
makes for family cheerfulness, which is always 
the very main-spring of family happiness. 

I would like to put the whole of that last 
paragraph into strong italic letters, for the 
majority of good people one meets who suffer 
[250] 



A FAVOURITE IN THE HOME CIRCLE 

from an embarrassingly silent time in society 
are, if they could but appreciate it, merely 
reaping the sad effects of living in silent 
families. 

They are members of those not uncommon 
households where, except when visitors are 
present, the parents and the children gather 
in the dining room, library, or on the piazza, 
without making the least unselfish effort to 
entertain one another. 

The father of one of these dull homes be- 
lieves that, after his day's work at the office, 
he is far too tired to contribute other than per- 
fectly necessary remarks to the very meagre 
stream of conversation. He says yes and no 
and drops a criticism or two, but nothing 
more. The mother gives a few orders, asks 
a few questions, sighs a few times, and re- 
lapses into speechlessness. 

With scarcely more effort to be pleasant, 
the sons and daughters turn to the business 
of satisfying their appetites, and then every- 
body is glad to leave the table. If one of the 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

household is not very well or not in very good 
spirits, he or she slips into a chair, sourly or 
sadly stares at a plate and, before dessert is 
served, mumbles an excuse and goes away. 

Now, in one sense, perhaps this may not be 
either an unamiable, selfish or unsociable 
group, but their home is dull and gloomy, 
and for enjoyment, for a gay atmosphere, for 
a chance to show how pleasant they can be, 
every member leaves home to seek society 
outside. 

Easily can one see what a mistake they 
make in not trying, instead, to be just as gay, 
just as agreeable and just as talkative at 
home as elsewhere. For it is to every one of 
infinite value to cultivate the admiration and 
interest of brothers and sisters, parents, etc., 
before trying to win the esteem of mere ac- 
quaintances. 

Just as it is easiest for you and for me to 
learn a language by studying it and practicing 
it in the country in which it is daily spoken, so 
it is easiest to learn what it is that makes for 
[252] 



A FAVOURITE IN THE HOME CIRCLE 

charm of manner by practicing all its pretty 
rules among the persons with whom we live 
our daily life. 

You will thus, I aver with confidence, ac- 
quire most quickly the accomplishment of 
talking well by making it your habit to talk at 
home. Never, never sit down to a family 
meal in dull silence, but tell of your day's 
doings, however simple they may have been, 
in a lively fashion. 

It is so much better to tell of an accident 
that befell a cab horse, or of a new flower you 
saw on the roadside, or of the big peaches you 
saw in the market, than sit plunged in si- 
lence that soon becomes a fixed habit requir- 
ing your utmost exertion to break. As you 
go about your pleasure and your business 
learn to notice little things, quaint, touching 
or ridiculous, and tell them at the dinner 
table. However silent the rest of your fam- 
ily may be, they will soon learn to appreciate 
your modest efforts to be amusing, and sadly 
miss you when you are absent. 

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Remember to tell your dress-loving sister 
of a remarkable green gown you saw on the 
street; don't forget to give your mother all the 
details of a little talk you had on the train 
with one of her old friends; and be sure it will 
rouse your horse-loving father's interest if 
you mention a thrilling bit of history you read 
of a great racer. 

Good home conversation is so easy to make, 
and when you talk you fall into the way of 
drawing others out and of inspiring laughter, 
which sweetens and brightens any atmos- 
phere. Laugh, above all things, with the 
members of your family, and not at them, for 
you will prove a thorn in the flesh of your 
nearest and dearest if you misguidedly allow 
yourself to become 

A TACTLESS TEASE 

TF you tease ever so lightly and gaily you 
only rouse your sister's ire or hurt your 
brother's feelings, and such injury to their 
pride and their tempers casts a shadow on 

[254] 



A FAVOURITE IN THE HOME CIRCLE 

not only their love for you, but on their liking 
for your companionship. 

At long intervals to poke a little harmless 
fun at Mary's weakness for bright colors, or 
Bob's appetite for chocolates, or the mother's 
proneness to suspect unjustly the butcher of 
sharp practice, is a harmless indulgence 
enough, so long as you do not push the point 
too far, and so long as Mary and Bob or the 
mother accept your fun-making with smiles 
and perfectly good-natured retorts. 

But as soon as ever you see that Mary looks 
fretted by the reference to her small vanities, 
gracefully resign any idea of carrying your 
jesting further and don't, in the presence of 
guests, show a delight in mentioning the 
sweet tooth of Robert, when you perfectly 
well know that that young gentleman is rather 
ashamed of his fondness for sugar plums. It 
is nothing less than poor sport to nag a rela- 
tive in a semi-humorous tone about his faults 
and his foibles, and to embarrass a member of 
your household before callers. 

[255] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

And tactless, even to the point of im- 
pertinence and vulgarity, is that habit of 
teasing a pretty sister about her beaux, 
or a brother concerning the young ladies 
whose charms deeply impress his susceptible 
heart. 

If Mr. Jones rings the front door bell three 
nights in the week, don't take advantage of 
the opportunity to increase the conscious 
blushes on your pretty sister's cheeks by tire- 
somely frequent reference to Mr. Jones, by 
open speculation as to his matrimonial aspi- 
rations, and by burlesque imitations of Mr. 
Jones's possible peculiarities. 

You cannot afford to do these things be- 
cause they make Mr. Jones look ridiculous 
in your sister's eyes, because they make your 
sister self-conscious, and because they arouse 
in her breast a great deal of justifiable resent- 
ment. Sometimes a tactless tease will suc- 
ceed in spoiling a friendship, or in annoying 
his victim even to the point of tears, and that 
is the kind of a victory in which, as a seeker 

[256] 



A FAVOURITE IN THE HOME CIRCLE 

after home popularity, you can promptly see 
defeat for all your hopes. 

On the whole, it is better to poke no fun at 
all when the object of your amusement is a 
bit thin-skinned, and remember that when 
it is a case of a little love affair going forward 
in the family parlor you do a great deal of 
injury to yourself by trying to make game of 
the young lady's admirer. 

Don't think it clever and funny to refer to 
Mabel's lover as " Jonesy" or "brother Ned," 
and when Mr. Jones has courted faithfully 
and then gone hopelessly away, don't make 
cruel game of the little tragedy. In a home 
circle you never do well to treat lightly such 
affairs, or refer to the departed Mr. Jones 
at all. That is, if you wish to show not 
only your dignity but your consideration 
for delicate feelings, and if you wish to 
win your sister's admiration and confidence, 
which it is so delightful and so necessary to 
possess. 

The consideration you show her, and the 
[257] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

fine sympathy you express by your respectful 
silence, when your brother's love affairs do 
not progress prosperously, are good seeds sown 
on good ground.' Not only does your display 
of tact save them from many a wound, but it, 
sooner or later, is recognized in your inter- 
course with your acquaintances as a charming 
quality, and earns for you their no less valu- 
able respect and affection. 

Just in the same proportion will you ul- 
timately feel abroad the good effects of that 
habit, however painstakingly acquired, of ful- 
filling not one but a dozen or more 

HOME COURTESIES 

< 7 fc> HEY are not unique of their kind, and I 
only mention them because, while you 
probably know that you must fulfil them in 
behalf of your neighbours and friends, and 
observe them when you go out in society, you 
perhaps have scarcely stopped to think that 
at home they have a place, are something more 
than an obligation, and are actually essential 

[258] 



A FAVOURITE IN THE HOME CIRCLE 

if you wish to make yourself very popular 
with your family. 

For instance, I must beg you not to think it 
superfluous, when a near relative returns 
home after more than a twelve-hour absence, 
to openly demonstrate your pleasure at their 
reappearance. If one of your parents or a 
sister arrives from a little journey into the 
world, don't perfunctorily embrace him or 
her, hail them with a casual "Oh, you got 
back all right, I see," and then give no fur- 
ther evidence of joy or interest. 

Bethink you, instead, of the best way to 
please your relative and be sure your sister 
will be charmed if you say, "Well, well, I am 
glad to see you back. I hope you had a fine 
time. What did you do while you were 
away ?" 

She will be delighted if you sit by and hear 
her account of her adventures with an inter- 
ested air. She will be just as responsive to 
your questions and as flattered by your atten- 
tion as though you were the most agreeable of 

[259] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

newly introduced young men, and it will make 
her home-coming seem so interesting and 
agreeable if you try to be on hand at the 
door to greet and meet her, and if you show 
a deep interest in all she said and all she did 
while she was absent. 

Perhaps you have yourself had the experi- 
ence of coming back after a delightful visit to 
a friend, and meeting with but an indiffer- 
ently kind reception from your family, not 
one of whom offered you more than a cheek to 
kiss, or asked one question concerning the 
pleasures of your journey. 

Of course you know that they love you, but 
that knowledge gives not all the comfort it 
should, especially when the love is not made 
evident by some of those little outward and 
visible signs which are small courtesies. 

Should you be open to this conviction and 
should you be eager to flatter and please those 
among whom you live your daily life, then re- 
member to say to that one of the household 
who is setting out on an expedition : 
[260] 



A FAVOURITE IN THE HOME CIRCLE 

"Good-bye, come back soon and I hope 
you will have the best of times while you are 
away or, "I am going to miss you, Jack, 
but I am glad that you are to have this holi- 
day, and I wish you good luck for every day 
of it." It will cost you so little to say these 
sentences, and however undemonstrative 
Jack may be, he will derive a wonderful lot of 
pleasure from your words and be impressed 
by them. So, too, will the little sister or 
brother of ten, who is bent on joining a picnic 
party, or the father of the family, who is off 
for a fishing trip. 

Do not excuse yourself nor satisfy your 
conscience, when you overlook or deliberately 
ignore an opportunity for a home courtesy, 
by saying to yourself: "Oh, it is not worth 
while to go through all those ceremonies and 
put myself out to get off fine speeches to the 
family. My relatives know, of course, that 
I wish them to enjoy their pleasures, and I 
am much too busy to drop my book or my 
work and run out and meet Mary, or always 

[261] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

remember to ask Jack what he did to pass 
away the time during his holiday, or listen to 
Lottie's tales of how the rain came down at 
the picnic." 

The will never yet, I think, has been valued 
as is the pretty deed or the kind word, and it 
is not alone the saying and doing of these lit- 
tle things that makes home life sweet and at- 
tractive or the reverse, but the extraordinary 
facility that home practice in courtesies give, 
and shows its wonderful value when you are 
thrown upon your own resources in securing 
the attention and the consideration of stran- 
gers. 

Twice, then, are there good reasons to per- 
suade you to make it a point, for example, 
at table to wait beside your own chair until 
the mistress of the house is seated. If you 
are her son, or her brother, or her daughter, 
pull out her chair for her when there is no 
deft servant to do this. 

Again, when you and the mistress of the 
house leave a room together, let her pass out 
[262] 



A FAVOURITE IN THE HOME CIRCLE 

first, if you can do so without creating con- 
fusion and delay. Knock at a bedroom 
door before you enter and do not fall into a 
careless and unkind way of dealing when you 
are talking with your family, in 

HOME TRUTHS 

*Z?Y this means you show a very homely 
wit indeed, for home truths may be read- 
ily defined, I think, as those frank, caustic or 
critical speeches that you would not dare to 
make to strangers. 

The fact of your near kinship to a man or a 
woman does not entitle you to special privi- 
leges in this respect, nor does it give you any 
right to believe that their feelings will not be as 
hurt by your open reference to her large feet, 
or his ungraceful manners, as though they are 
your acquaintances. They are human and 
have quite human pride and vanity, and it is 
cruel to hurt the one and outrage the other by 
carelessly saying: "Mary, you possess the 
worst temper I ever experienced;" or, " Really, 

[263] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

George, you have less common sense than any 
one I know." 

This may be the very actual truth concern- 
ing both George and Mary, but it is not kind, 
and, what is equally reprehensible, it is cru- 
elly impolite for you to say so. George may 
merely smile at your assertion and Mary may 
dauntlessly toss her head and strike back as 
hard a blow with her tongue as you have in- 
flicted, but, for all that, you have been guilty 
of a gross rudeness over which you cannot feel 
too repentant. 

None too promptly nor too carefully can you 
follow the far more commendable course of 
never saying to a member of your family any- 
thing which, if said to you, would cause you for 
an instant to wince with shame or blush with 
anger. Advice or reproof you can discover 
by experience does more harm than good 
when it is so rudely or roughly given that it 
brings with it humiliation or indignation. 

If, from your real affectionate regard for 
your relative you wish to point out to him — 

[264] 



A FAVOURITE IN THE HOME CIRCLE 

or to her — an error, or correct a fault, do so 
just as gently and as cautiously as you know 
how, and don't try to correct errors and point 
out mistakes too often. 

When you have advice to give, if it is a 
serious matter, give it in private, and always 
less advice than sweet, complimentary 
speeches. Because you are Mary's sister or 
George's brother, there is no reason that you 
should think it unnecessary, or out of place, 
to tell her that you think her new gown is 
really wonderfully becoming, or to tell him 
that you have a high opinion of his latest 
achievement in business affairs. 

A compliment is not less but more relished 
when it comes from a member of one's family 
than when it is a tribute won from a stranger; 
and these signs of appreciation that you give 
of a dear one's wit, wisdom or beauty, are the 
little home truths that are ever affectionately 
remembered and that help you to win the 
proudest of all social positions: that of the 
popular member of the family circle. 

[265] 



CHAPTER ELEVEN 



A BACHELOR AND A GENTLEMAN 

What is it to be a gentleman ? It is to be honest, to be 
gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possess- 
ing all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful 
outward manner. Wm. M. Thackeray. 

much that is sensible and witty and 
I^J helpful has been written in behalf of 
the woman who wishes to learri how to 
play a graceful and successful part in society, 
but little enough has ever been said in print 
and on this subject for the benefit of the bach- 
elor citizen — for that one I mean who de- 
sires to claim a social side to his career and 
who is not wholly satisfied with the society 
provided by his office and his club. 

[266] 



A BACHELOR AND A GENTLEMAN 

After business hours are over and he has a 
bit of leisure at his command he would like to 
be welcomed into private houses and into those 
circles where he will meet women as well as 
men. To gain that much of his heart's desire 
seems easy enough perhaps to those who 
possess a natural gift for winning their way 
socially, but not infrequently a difficulty and a 
discouragement confronts the young man who 
tries to "go out" and enjoy himself as do the 
other members of his sex and his acquaintance. 

His trouble arises from the very disconcert- 
ing consciousness that he does not seem able 
to make himself positively agreeable to the 
sisters of his masculine friends. This un- 
pleasant knowledge hits his pride a hard blow, 
touches his vanity and causes him to wonder 
a good deal. He knows as well as Thackeray 
what it is to be a gentleman, and, better still, 
he knows that he is himself a gentleman at 
heart and in all his feelings. 

However, all these certainties do not greatly 
help him to the kind of popularity he covets, 

[ 2 6 7 ] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

and consequently he grows a little cynical about 
society in general, and women in particular. 
He blames the former for being dull, he de- 
cides that the smiles and the friendship of the 
latter are not worth while, and he blunders into 
some very wrong opinions on the subject of 

THE WAY TO PLEASE A WOMAN 

y^ IKE a crusty old misogynist he agrees 
with himself and openly expresses the 
belief that Brown, Jones and Robinson 
are popular fellows because of their good 
clothes, their easy manner of paying com- 
pliments, their college educations and the 
fact that they carry a few more inches than 
most men. 

But as the crusty old misogynist is usually 
incorrect in his conclusions, so also is the 
young man who believes that "it is the gay 
coat that makes the agreeable gentleman," as 
a sarcastic Frenchman has said, for, without 
the well-cut clothes, the extra inches, the col- 
lege education, etc. — valuable and pleasing 

C 268 ] 



A BACHELOR AND A GENTLEMAN 

as they all are no doubt — it is easy for a 
young man to be a social favourite. 

That is, of course, providing he will just re- 
member what Thackeray says in the last sen- 
tence of the paragraph quoted at the head of 
this chapter. Not only must he be a gentle- 
man at heart, but he must display the qualities 
of a gentleman "in the most graceful outward 
manner," and he must not be too busy or too 
thoughtless to see that the way to please a 
woman is to prove to her that he is just as 
much a gentleman in practice as in theory. 

We live in a busy day, when the average 
young man who is searching for fame and 
working for fortune is apt to forget this impor- 
tant fact. He stands ready at any time to show 
himself a manly person and to do heroic deeds. 
Opportunities, however, for stopping runaway 
horses and snatching fellow-citizens or their 
daughters from flames or waves are few and far 
between. Often enough they do not present 
themselves once in a lifetime, but, meanwhile, 
and daily, too, the chances are offering for any 

[269] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

bachelor to win his way into social esteem by 
showing to women those small attentions by 
which their favour is unfailingly won. 

I believe I am speaking for all my sex when 
I say that there is not one of them, whether 
young or old, pretty or plain, who does not 
like instinctively and positively that man who 
is willing to show her a charming deference 
and who is not too preoccupied or too in- 
different to make at all times his deferential 
little way conspicuous in his manner when he 
is enjoying her society. 

Women, as a rule, do not estimate a man so 
much by the cut of his coat, colour of his hair 
or conversational capabilities, as they do by 
his capacity for quick courtesies that cost 
nothing but the will to do them and to remem- 
ber them. They warmly approve of such 

A SQUIRE OF DAMES 

/I S one who came even to big, bustling, 
critical and fashionable New York City 
and made an excellent social position for 

[270] 



A BACHELOR AND A GENTLEMAN 

himself there. He arrived from the part of 
the country where frock coats were all but un- 
known, and his beauty, to be very frank, was 
not even skin deep. To tell yet further the 
unvarnished truth, he was big, ungraceful and 
ill-dressed. He was a lawyer's clerk, living 
on a narrow income, and so very quiet in his 
diffidence that on a first meeting with him it 
was hard to tell whether or not he was des- 
tined to be some day a Judge of the United 
States Supreme Court or just a lawyer's clerk 
to the end of his life. 

Nevertheless, no woman ever met him and 
then quite forgot him. A memory of this 
awkward and almost shabby young fellow re- 
mained because he had a fashion of rising al- 
ways to surrender his chair to a lady with a 
promptness and a little pleased air that made 
her think that somehow he found it a privi- 
lege to serve her. He never waited a little 
and then dragged himself up from his seat as 
though fulfilling an obvious and tiresome 
duty, nor did he ever forget to rise; and rising, 
[271] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

he stood as though he wanted to be ready to 
show her any other attention that a gentleman 
can show a woman. 

Somehow he never failed to reach a door 
first and open it when his feminine companion 
wished to pass out, he always saw at once 
when an umbrella should be lifted and opened, 
a parcel carried, a chair brought forward, 
and a shade pulled down to render the light a 
trifle softer. If he said very little at first, and 
that rather diffidently, he was not the less 
quick to see when a tea-cup was empty or 
when a glove had fallen to the floor, and his 
shyness, though really great, never prevented 
him from showing at all times a very spon- 
taneous willingness to do everything in his 
power to render the woman at his side both 
comfortable and happy. 

His feminine companion, whether a stout 
dowager of sixty or a pretty debutante of 
eighteen, never found him inattentive either 
to her little wants or to her conversation. To 
her remarks he had a pleasant way of listen- 
[272] 



A BACHELOR AND A GENTLEMAN 

ing as though they were fully deserving of his 
very particular interest, as though he felt that 
there was something to learn from her words 
and also as though he was sensible of a deal of 
pleasure and satisfaction at the efforts she was 
making to amuse him. 

He had not himself in any marked degree a 
capacity for small talk, but when chance 
threw him into but a momentary companion- 
ship with a woman, he always contrived 
in a very quiet way, and by very simple 
and direct means, to give her to under- 
stand that he found it agreeable to be in her 
company. 

He sat quite still always beside a new 
woman acquaintance, and kept his eyes and 
his ears for her alone. Whatever topic of con- 
versation she might introduce received his 
immediate interest, and despite his diffidence, 
he never, in such circumstances, allowed him- 
self to look restlessly wretched or eagerly 
hopeful of some method of escape. 

In this he was not only kind and consider- 

[ 273 ] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

ate, but almost profoundly wise, and in this 
I have occasion warmly to recommend imi- 
tation of his conduct to the bachelor who has 
social troubles of his own. 

It is so necessary, when introduced to the 
pretty girl in blue at the dance, or to the plain- 
faced and elderly spinster sister of your host- 
ess, to be careful to indicate the fact that you 
do not accept the introduction as a bit of rou- 
tine ceremony. Contrive to look as though a 
small honour had been bestowed upon you, 
and if you are not equal to the task of begin- 
ning the conversation, leave that duty to her. 

With instinctively superior feminine tact 
and self-possession she will try to take out of 
of the air the chill that always prevails more 
or less where a presentation has been made, 
but you must be ready and willing to respond 
to her gentle advances. It is not possible to 
win her good graces if you listen so half-heart- 
edly to her remarks that you force her to be- 
lieve that she is saying very dull things indeed, 
or that you are one of those difficult and per- 

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A BACHELOR AND A GENTLEMAN 

haps intellectual young men whom it is very 
hard to entertain. 

Let her see, instead, that you are genuinely 
grateful for her kindly endeavours to be inter- 
esting by keeping your eyes from wandering 
hopefully toward the door and by never 
asking that some query or information be 
repeated because it has escaped your inat- 
tentive ear. 

Learn early in your social career and keep 
faithful to the belief that the most 

IRRESISTIBLE FLATTERY 

i *T~ HAT any man can pay to any woman is 
to show her that he is thinking of her al- 
ways considerately, sometimes very admir- 
ingly, and that the thought of her prompts 
him to many little politenesses and attentions. 
You strike, however, very wide of the mark of 
popularity if you are inclined to argue that the 
attentions that women prize the most, and to 
which I refer here, are those that touch your 
pocket or take up a great deal of your time. 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

Society would be difficult to enter, and a 
very poor and unattractive organization in- 
deed, if it were true, as is sometimes stated, 
that only to the young man who is able 
to send gifts of roses and sweets, and offer 
hospitalities in the form of gay theatre parties 
and handsome restaurant dinners, is given 
success in making his way into the good graces 
of the hostesses and their daughters. 

If you wish to gain what dear old Doctor 
Sam Johnson calls, in his stately way, the 
"endearing elegance of female friendship," 
you must then know that it pleases a woman 
when you show a willingness to pay her the 
very small attentions and to put yourself to a 
little bit of trouble on her account. 

The charming hostess who asked you to 
dinner or to high tea on Sunday evening, or 
who included you in her carefully arranged 
card party, will, for example, like you very 
much better if you remember to ring her door 
bell and present yourself for a call in due 
time, than if you forgot all about the call and, 

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A BACHELOR AND A GENTLEMAN 

by and bye, remorseful and repentant, and 
aware of cold glances from her direction, you 
hurry away down town and send her a bou- 
quet of flowers that cost you very much more 
than you really have any right to pay. The 
flowers perhaps will modify her natural re- 
sentment and show her that you regret your 
neglectfulness, but the point that you ought 
to note here is that it was not flowers at all that 
she wanted, and that in themselves the flow- 
ers don't please and flatter her half so much 
as the call would have, had you only be- 
thought you to pay it in time. 

The call, you see, proves to her that the 
memory of her hospitality, the memory of all 
generous-hearted exertions, and the smiles she 
bestowed in the hope of making your evening 
under her roof a very agreeable one, did not 
fade quickly from your mind, but left so sweet 
and grateful an impression there that you 
were prompt in finding the path to her door 
again to give her personal acknowledgment of 
your little pleasant sense of obligation. 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

This is, the, then right and the safe view to 
take of the social situation when you desire 
feminine friendship, when you believe, with 
Thackeray, that it is necessary for a man 
to have women friends, and when you wish 
to go about not only the promptest but the 
easiest way to make yourself agreeable to 
women. 

"Life," says Emerson, "is not so short but 
that there is always time for courtesy," so do 
not argue that your business cares are a suf- 
ficient excuse for neglecting those little social 
duties by the fulfilment of which women set 
a great deal of store. 

Take a pride in keeping up a social cor- 
respondence as well as a great commercial 
letter-book, and when you receive a woman's 
note answer it just as promptly as you possi- 
bly can. 

Be not only punctilious on this point, but 
write little notes now and then when you 
think the two-cent stamp can do for you the 
good work of a call which you may not have 

[278] J 



A BACHELOR AND A GENTLEMAN 

time to pay. When you receive, for instance, 
a card to a young lady's debutante tea, and 
you are not able to present yourself on that 
momentous occasion, write her a line of re- 
grets and congratulations. The few cour- 
teous words will please her even more than if 
you had offered tribute to her charms in the 
form of a costly bunch of violets. 

If you hear that a feminine friend is ill or 
has lost a relative, do not call her up on the 
telephone to say that you are sorry, or forget 
about her troubles, and show no sign of your 
interest and sympathy until it is too late to do 
so gracefully, but make it a point, as you go 
home from your office, to pass by her home 
and leave your card, after having made kindly 
inquiries of her servants. 

She will record every one of these amiable 
little deeds to your credit, as will the hostess 
who sees that at her dancing party you are 
glad and willing to do your best to show your 
most entertaining self to your fellow-guests, 
that if you cannot dance, you at least can talk 

[279] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

and walk and assist by taking in the occa- 
sional lonely feminine guest to supper, and 
that you have a generous-hearted inclination 
to help her deal effectively with the trying 
and desolate situation in which the unhappy 
wall-flower is placed. 

In fulfilling all these kindly offices you need 
not do violence to your feelings, or steal hours 
that should be devoted to your business, or 
run into heavy extravagances. The 

COST OF COURTESY 

never great, and the time or attention you 
devote to winning a nice woman's esteem is 
never time lost or misspent. She will always 
give you amply of her interest and liking in 
return for your attentions, and when you have 
decided that your attentions must, for many 
good reasons, take a material and substantial 
form, think twice and think carefully before 
you put your hand into your pocket. 

Now and then, of course, your pride will 
demand that you offer a gift to the lady who 

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A BACHELOR AND A GENTLEMAN 

has entertained you frequently at her charm- 
ing house, and, if you are at a loss to 
know just what form the gift should take, 
do not come to the conclusion that the 
situation must be met in princely fashion. 
That is to say, if you are a young gentle- 
man of moderate salary and economical 
inclinations. 

A woman, if she is a nice one, never judges 
a man friend by the size of his gift or the cost 
thereof. It is the flattering little effort he 
makes, in choosing something that will please 
her special taste, that charms her most; and 
if you have dined and supped frequently at a 
hospitable house, and if you are not quite able 
to ask your hostess to theatre parties, etc., in 
return, send her at Christmas, or New Year, 
or Easter, a bunch of violets, or a book you 
have heard her ask for. 

You may not be able to show her this 
special act of homage but once a year, but 
don't fail to show it to her then, and do not 
trouble yourself at all over the consciousness, 

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THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 



if you are well aware of it, that you have not 
the faculty for 

PRETTY SPEECHES 

7VTO gift is so rare nor possesses so doubtful 
a value, I think, as that for paying deli- 
cate or elaborate compliments with the easy 
grace which some men exercise by natural 
right. Here I speak again as a woman, and 
for my sex in general, when I say that spoken 
flattery is not always as grateful to feminine 
vanity as the average masculine philosopher 
would have us believe. 

The compliment that is implied by an ad- 
miring and chivalrous manner bears with it 
a far more subtle and lasting flattery than the 
most carefully arranged phrases. 

For if you tell Miss Jones that she looks 
wonderfully lovely in her pretty pink ball 
gown, and then, later on, quite forget to ask 
Miss Jones to dance in the course of the eve- 
ning, or let her drag her chair well across the 
room before you see your opportunity to give 

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A BACHELOR AND A GENTLEMAN 

her assistance, you only offer her that not un- 
common kind of flattery that gives Miss 
Jones good reason to think that men are not 
sincere in their admiration, and that the 
flattery you gave her was very idle and un- 
meaning after all. 

Such a compliment is easy to pay and really 
impresses her far less than when she sees that 
on her arrival you rise to greet her with a look 
of genuine pleasure in your eyes. If you come 
from afar, across a crowded room just to have 
a word with her because she has been ill or 
absent, and you then remember to say that 
you are glad to see her back again, she accepts 
that tribute to her charm with far more satis- 
faction than anything distinctly flattering that 
you could have said, and if you receive her per- 
mission to call and then avail yourself of your 
first fair opportunity to do so, she will easily 
take the verbal expressions of your admiration 
for granted and count you as one whose friend- 
ship is founded on courtesy, which is the only 
true stepping-stone to social success. 

[283] 



CHAPTER TWELVE 



A GRACIOUS MISTRESS 

She doeth little kindnesses 
Which most leave undone or despised. 

J. R. Lowell. 

E are very fond in this day and 
generation of discussing what is 
commonly known as the servant 
question. It troubles our minds and disturbs 
our homes and puzzles our philosophers, and 
we consequently argue about it from many 
points of view both of employer and employee. 

Where to secure good servants, what they 
should do or leave undone in order to entitle 
them to high wages and lighter labour, are all 
sides of this interesting question that have 

[284] 




A GRACIOUS MISTRESS 

been examined with the greatest care, in print 
and by capable committees. But one phase 
of this subject has so far been ignored, and I 
intend to touch upon it here, by first asking 
and then trying to answer the very important 
query as to what it is that makes not only a 
gracious mistress but a popular one. 

Every one of my feminine readers knows 
just what it is, of course, that makes an ad- 
mirable and a valuable cook, waitress, cham- 
bermaid or maid-of-all-work ; at least, that is 
if they are readers who have had experience 
at housekeeping; but I wonder how many of 
them have attempted to discover what it is that 
enables a head of domestic affairs to stand very 
well indeed in the estimation of her household 
employees, and what inspires their interest 
in and sincerely ardent admiration for her. 

How the mistress can show to her servants 
the most truly agreeable side of her personality 
is one of the aspects of the domestic situation 
that is not often talked of or even thought of. 

The average matron regards herself as 

[285] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

capable and conscientious in her home realm 
when she pays wages liberally and promptly. 
She is quite satisfied with her own efficiency if 
she serves tempting food, keeps her house in 
exquisite cleanliness and order, and seldom 
or never does she stop to wonder just how she 
appears in the eyes of her maids, and whether 
they like her or not. As a rule, her only and 
her highest view of her duty is to conscien- 
tiously inspire her servants with a wholesome 
fear of her displeasure, to be able to exact a 
good deal of work from them, and to see that 
her orders are promptly and carefully exe- 
cuted. 

But as a capable and conscientious house- 
keeper she should be and should do more than 
this; she should not only have respectful and 
dutiful servants, but servants who admire her 
as much as they respect her, and she should be 
very alert to find and very desirous of possess- 
ing their approbation as well as their respect. 
Furthermore, she may even think it by no 
means beneath her dignity to study and to as- 
[286] 



A GRACIOUS MISTRESS 

sume, if she can, that manner that will serve 
not only to please her employees, but inspire 
their affection, for it is safe to believe that 
their affection is very well indeed worth hav- 
ing, and that it is possible for a woman to be 
a very exacting, practical housekeeper and yet 

A HEROINE TO HOUSEMAIDS 

ITH such a really fine and exalted ob- 
ject in view, it is not difficult to deal 
with the problem of what it is in a mistress's 
manner that is pleasing to a servant, for 
with servants, as with the rest of us, manner is 
everything. Servants have their pride, vanity, 
generosity, gratitude and sense of apprecia- 
tion, to all of which sensibilities a perfectly 
certain appeal can be made, and servants 
above everything else are keenly and pleas- 
antly impressed by the fact that they are em- 
ployed by "a lady." 

However roughly bred, however ignorant 
and stupid a servant may be, she looks up to 
a lady, she likes to work for a lady, and she 

[287] 




THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

takes orders twice as willingly and fulfils 
them twice as gladly when they are issued by 
a lady as when the mistress is in her eyes but 
yet a woman. 

As a housekeeper, then, you who desire to 
hold your position securely and successfully 
are obligated, I think, to make your lady- 
hood patent and apparent to the one honest 
drudge or the many well-trained adepts who 
labour under your roof, and first by the tone of 
your voice. There is a music in low tones 
that has a charm to soothe any breast, and the 
most persuasive music to a servant's ear is 
that of the mistress's voice that is never raised 
above the gentlest pitch. 

If it is to deliver a rebuke, or issue an order, 
or attract attention, always let your softest 
notes only be employed. There is a little 
ladyhood lost by letting shrill exasperation 
raise the level of your tones when Bridget has 
baked the cake all wrong, or given a message 
incorrectly at the door, or carelessly let fall a 
precious dish; and not only does correction, 
[ 2 88] ' 



A GRACIOUS MISTRESS 

when given in a loud, sharp voice, fail to make 
any more desirably deep impression on Brid- 
get's conscience than if it were spoken in a 
quiet, even key, but it often results most un- 
fortunately in exciting anger on both sides. 
In the conducting of household affairs the 
highly injurious habit of scolding in a harsh, 
indignant, noisy manner is one of the mis- 
takes that, Bridget knows as well as her mis- 
tress, "a lady" does not make. 

So quick indeed is your servant to realize 
this that rarely or never will she answer you 
back with insolence if a correction is given 
in exactly the right vocal key. When, though 
you let your impatience get the better of you 
and you lose control of your voice; when your 
irritation shows itself in a gesture, tone and 
expression, Bridget feels then that she and 
you are placed exactly on a level and that the 
give and take of a quarrel can be freely in- 
dulged in. 

She is not, as she might be, held in check by 
her respect for your ladyhood, and she thinks 

[ 2 8 9 ] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

of you as in no wise different from herself 
when she hears you loudly rate Jacky for his 
mischief, and shriek down the hallway at the 
top of your lungs to gain the departing gas- 
man's attention. Yet, if you are a mistress 
who knows 

HOW TO PRAISE AND BLAME 

< T fc, HEN in admiring awe will your servant 
stand before you. It is the "soft-spoken 
lady" to whom she refers with a reverent 
affection, in the presence of whom her tem- 
pestuous outbursts are rarely or never heard, 
and, as the "soft-spoken lady," you will not 
be less than popular and respected by your 
domestics. 

But to be all of this you must not alone 
keep control of your voice, thus of your tem- 
per, and consequently of the temper of your 
servants, but you must also be a faithful prac- 
titioner of the art of issuing reproof or of vol- 
unteering outspoken commendation. 

This art, as you should follow it, in all its 
[290] 



A GRACIOUS MISTRESS 

branches, is simple enough. It is founded on 
the perfectly good, safe principle of never ar- 
guing acrimoniously a point of duty with any 
domestic. You cannot ever win any in- 
fluence in this way. If Bridget does not see 
that it is her business to do the task that you 
have set for her, don't dispute the justice or 
the injustice of your demands or of your com- 
mand. If she is unwilling to take your view 
of the situation the course of angrily insisting 
upon her acceptance of your orders is not the 
more kindly and dignified one to pursue. 

Always a better plan, when Bridget is in- 
clined to be both obstinate and rebellious, is 
to say with an air of serene good temper, 
"Now, just think it over a little while and see 
if you don't think my way is the best way." 
The intemperate and old-fashioned method of 
giving a wilful or a careless servant "a piece 
of your mind " places you in the most unfor- 
tunate of all positions before an employee. 
She cannot admire you the more for seeing 
you lose your temper and indulge in exasper- 
[291] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

ating and exaggerated threats and denuncia- 
tions ; your loss of self-command renders it 
impossible for you to let in any clear light of 
reason to the servant's mind or persuade her 
to obliging sweetness of temper. 

On the other hand, there is a very great 
deal gained by saying, when your authority 
is defied, that a half-hour of consideration will 
bring calmer judgment to the surface and by 
appealing directly to that which every servant 
does possess — a better nature and a softer 
temper. 

To speak in heat brings regrets that are 
always unavailing, because you cannot apolo- 
gize to your employee and because you have 
taken advantage of your position as employer. 
Instead, then, drop a trying subject before the 
situation grows strained and wait and watch 
to see if Bridget will not, in a quarter of an 
hour, slip away and sweep down the debated 
back stairs, which she said she never, never 
would sweep, or run on the errand to which, 
just from a whim, she emphatically objected. 
[292] 



A GRACIOUS MISTRESS 

Wait and watch, and if she does man- 
age to realize her mistake and rectify it, say 
nothing further to her on the subject. She 
will know by your silence that you saw her act 
of repentance, and she will like you vastly 
better if, when you have a correction to give, 
you state your disapproval of her methods or 
her manners in private. 

She is a careless mistress indeed who does 
not think of Bridget's pride and Bridget's 
vanity when Bridget's faults and failings 
must be held up before her, and to whirl into 
the kitchen and before the other servants, or 
Bridget's visitor, or the grinning butcher boy, 
to make known her carelessness and her over- 
sights and to conclude the recital of her short- 
comings by a brief "good scolding," is to stir 
up all the servant's justest resentment. 

Deliver, therefore, your serious reproofs to 
her when no third person is present, and do 
not tell her of dustings scamped, of floors un- 
swept and dishes badly washed in any but a 
perfectly kind, direct and frank fashion. 

[ 293 ] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

There is a tone and an air that house- 
keepers of the really gentlest and most toler- 
ant natures assume, when administering a 
rebuke, that I can only call the trying tone 
and air, and they utilize it especially for the 
disciplining of employees. Most unconsciously 
perhaps they speak in a voice of cold, severe 
scorn, or of plaintive, hopeless resignation, 
and neither the voice nor the manner, in 
which the complaint is thus made, is very easy 
for the servant to hear amiably, silently or 
patiently. 

To take a servant to task is a duty then, I 
think, that calls for the exercise of real fore- 
thought and tact, and, while a good house- 
keeper should overlook nothing and exact 
everything, she should be ready also to realize 
that a servant is never so pleased and so stimu- 
lated to better things and kinder thoughts, and 
more eager interest in her work as when she 
knows that her employer appreciates her good 
points, her little clevernesses, her sound quali- 
ties, and is willing to give full credit for them. 

[294] 



A GRACIOUS MISTRESS 

A compliment well turned in the kitchen is of 
quite as great an advantage to you as a house- 
keeper as that one you pay so graciously in your 
drawing room as a hostess, and it is just as 
much relished by your cook as by your caller. 

" But that," I have heard some practical but 
not very successful mistresses of disturbed 
households say, "is one way of course to spoil 
a servant." 

On the contrary, it is the housekeeper who 
does not know how and when and where to 
extol Mary's good coffee and to mention 
kindly Bridget's deft hand at the beds, or her 
ability to make the silver shine, who finds her 
economy in pleasant words a false economy 
indeed. She who never speaks to her ser- 
vants save to give orders or correct mistakes 
has only a discouraging and never a stimulat- 
ing influence with those who serve her. She 
may, by her constant care and oversight, per- 
suade her employees to a great deal of dili- 
gence, so long as they feel her presence and 
fear her eye, but the mistress who is able to 

[ 295] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

win from her servants those little extra and 
voluntary favours that they offer so readily to 
the employer whom they admire, is the mis- 
tress who is as careful to mention the coffee 
when it is good as when it is bad. 

No better policy do I know than that of 
complimenting the cook roundly when guests 
have been entertained and the dinner, lunch- 
eon or breakfast served for them proved a 
thorough success. A word of admiration for 
her dainty dishes pleases her quite as much 
as praise of a book or picture pleases its author 
or its artist, and the policy of coldly ignoring 
an employee's good qualities and best efforts, 
and giving an attentive eye and ear only to 
their mistakes and shortcomings, is as unfor- 
tunate as that of refusing even to hear one 
word concerning 

KITCHEN POLITICS 

/I SERVANT'S grievances, whatever they 
may be, merit your attention, and if you 
have the good-nature and the long patience to 

[296] 



A GRACIOUS MISTRESS 

listen to a story of discomforts endured, or in- 
justice borne and trial sustained, the injured 
member of the kitchen circle feels infinitely 
soothed, comforted and not a little flattered in 
consequence. 

If you will listen and try to understand, an 
opportunity is then open to give advice and 
to untangle a complication, for nothing so 
satisfies and gratifies a servant as to receive 
sympathy and to inspire an interest. 

Because her troubles originate in the kitchen 
and are connected with pots and pans, 
brooms and dusters, they are none the less 
real and hard to bear and worthy of con- 
sideration than your worries and anxieties, 
which only look more pressing and imposing 
to you because they originate on a little 
bigger scene of action and because they are 
your own. 

Count it no loss of time or effort that you 
are called upon then to hear of a difficulty be- 
low stairs and to arbitrate the matter. Try 
to arbitrate it if you can by bringing all the 

[297] 



THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

light of justice and good temper possible to 
bear upon the situation. Do not dismiss the 
whole question with disgust and impatience 
and the commonly accepted excuse to your- 
self that servants' squabbles and servants' 
grievances are beneath contempt and defy 
settlement and palliation. 

When a state of open hostility prevails in 
the kitchen and a member of the domestic 
force decides that she must leave, do not be 
content to let her go without inquiring her 
reasons or without letting her lay before you 
her demands and her story. 

A ten minutes' talk over the whole situa- 
tion in private may not perhaps incline her to 
your views, or show her just where her best in- 
terests lie, but it will nearly always bring her 
back to an admirable frame of mind and en- 
able her to part from you on the most amicable 
possible terms. This is, I think, a most 
happy and desirable end to accomplish, for I 
know of nothing that so redounds to a mis- 
tress's discredit as the fact that she and her ser- 

[298] 



A GRACIOUS MISTRESS 

vants part, when part they must, in an angry 
misunderstanding. 

Little, perhaps, has been made of this point, 
but the truth remains nevertheless that your 
servant will never leave you in haste and dis- 
content when you have been the one to keep 
steady command of your temper and when 
you have insisted on taking a cheerfully philo- 
sophical view of Bridget's foolish, impulsive 
or passionate decision. 

Maybe she is unwise, for the average ser- 
vant, like the average child, is not very far- 
sighted nor sage in her judgments of what is 
best for herself or those she serves. Rarely 
or never, however, is she unresponsive to that 
charming condescension of manner which you 
can show when the hour comes for her to 
have the check for wages made out, her 
character written, and the expressman per- 
haps is waiting at the door for her trunk. 

Show at this moment all the ladyhood and 
fine kindliness of your nature by holding out 
your hand to her and saying that you wish her 

[299] 



7 ^5 

THE SECRET OF POPULARITY 

success in the future. Her incivility and her 
righteous wrath will thereupon desert her in 
the instant. Read her no lecture on the 
error of her way, offer her no advice for her 
future and make no reproaches concerning 
her misdemeanours in the past, but let her see 
above everything else that you are glad and 
ready to show her the courtesies of the situa- 
tion, and your triumph as a mistress is then 
complete. 

THE END 



THE MOCLURE PRESS, NEW YORK 
[300] 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 899 243 2 



